You Can Never Go Back
by InfinityStar
Summary: Goren and Eames find their lives forever changed by forces beyond their control.
1. Stakeout

**A/N: This is the long-promised post-Season Ten story from which my oneshot _What Might Have Been_ was born.**

Unlike many cops, Bobby Goren didn't mind stakeouts. Usually, they graced him with quiet downtime in which to think about whatever case it was he and his partner, Alex Eames, were working. He found such downtime to be invigorating, giving him an opportunity to work his way deeper into the mind of their quarry. As much as his partner hated losing him to whatever criminal he had in his sights, she understood his need to go...as long as he came back to her, which he always did.

It had been quite awhile since they'd been on stakeout together, and Goren found that something had changed, which came as a huge surprise to him, though it shouldn't have. The something that had changed was him. Physically, he was much leaner, down to the healthiest weight he'd seen in years. Pushing 50, it had been more of a struggle for him to shed unwanted pounds than it used to be, but he'd applied himself and one more obstacle tumbled out of his way. The way he dressed and the frequency with which he shaved of late reflected his satisfaction with his healthier physique, but it was an outward sign of a much more profound transition. The biggest change was taking place within him.

His therapy sessions with Paula Gyson, which he continued of his own free will after her evaluation of him for the department was complete, had sent him spinning. He had always avoided self-analysis as much as he could, uncomfortable with the man he had become. Gyson was helping him to become the man he wanted to be. For the first time in his life, he was healthy inside and out.

At the current moment, scrunched down in the passenger seat of their department-issued SUV, he was experiencing a significant amount of downtime, courtesy of the suspect for whom they were waiting. He couldn't complain though. He found a way to entertain himself. As much as he relished the challenge of figuring out the mind of a criminal, he was far more intrigued by the challenge of figuring out the woman seated in the car beside him. And right now, he was successfully annoying her.

No one trusted him more than Alex Eames did. She trusted him to keep an eye on their surroundings, to let her know if and when their suspect made an appearance, to _behave_ himself. Okay, in hindsight, she had to admit she was pushing it with that last expectation. She held her coffee cup in both hands and sipped the sweet liquid as her eyes scanned the street around them.

It wasn't a good neighborhood. Three streetlights were out, making it harder to see through the darkness. A small group of teens sat on a stoop halfway down the block, smoking pot, not even trying to hide it. In the four hours they'd been watching the neighborhood, they had not seen a single cop, not one patrol car.

Beside her, Bobby was bored, and he started being playful. His hands strayed over various parts of her body, trying to get a reaction from her. She fought to suppress her response to each move his hands made, but she didn't try to stop him. Her mind strayed to a mental list she had begun to compose recently, a list that continued to grow steadily. _Reason number 137—or was it 138—of why I love my partner._ It was the same as reason number 2, but it was also important enough to warrant repeating. _He makes me laugh._

There had been a time, not too long ago, when the opposite was true. Instead of making her laugh, he made her want to throttle him. What was the technical term for killing one's partner? In the absence of one, she had been ready and willing to coin a term, if not to put it into actual use. Partnericide, maybe? What other words might apply, synonyms for partner...friend, buddy, chum, pal, mate... no, not mate... _soul_ mate...How the hell had that happened without her even being aware that it was?

Okay, so he'd been through a rough patch. Several of them, in fact. But to her mind, that did not give him carte blanche to do what he'd done, to treat her as though she were, what? Expendable. Or inconsequential, maybe. Neither was a term she particularly liked to have applied to her. Forgiveness had been a long time coming.

She wasn't even sure what had triggered it. One bright morning, it seemed, she woke and dragged herself into work to find a different man had hijacked her partner's body. Okay, so it hadn't been _that_ sudden. He had worked hard to redeem himself, with Gyson's help, no doubt, and he had earned the forgiveness she had initially been so reluctant to give.

 _Reason number 139, uh 8—oh hell, it doesn't really matter that much, does it? He makes me feel young again._

How long had they been partners now? More than a decade. Back in the beginning, it had been a struggle, especially for her. Goren wasn't the easiest man in the world to get along with back then, and she was still working through the loss of Joe. Back then, she gauged everything in her life in terms of her life with Joe. She still remembered the grief she felt when the day came that Joe had been gone longer than they had been married, and then the day he'd been gone longer than she had known him. She also remembered when Goren figured that out. He was tuned in to her, even back then. Both times, he took her to dinner, let her get drunk and made sure she got safely home. He tucked her in to bed and slept on the couch, nursing her through her hangover, and her grief, all the next day while he sat in her living room and used his laptop to work their open cases. Something between them had changed that first time, and hindsight told her that was when she had finally begun to step away from her grief and fall in love with him.

They settled in to watch for their suspect, a dealer named Gus Jarden, who was suspected of ambushing the adult children of two senators, a city councilman and the mayor, leaving them beaten half to death, bruised and bleeding in filthy alleys, robbed of cash, credit cards and dignity. He was a nasty slimeball in a very high-profile case, and they needed to get him off the streets sooner rather than later. And so they waited.

He began playing with her hair. She didn't protest much.

His phone chimed and he fished it out of his pocket. A text from Logan. _Busy?_

 _Stakeout,_ he replied _._

 _Are you bored yet?_

 _Not at the moment. I'm managing to keep myself entertained._

 _Behave. The walls have ears. Besides, if you steam up the windows, you'll out yourselves._

He laughed softly. She took his phone, and he let her. Seeing it was Logan, she smiled. Logan had proven his friendship time and again, and she was glad he was still around, that he stayed in touch with Goren. He had proven himself to be just the friend that her partner needed.

Eight years ago, on the night he and Logan had been caught in lockdown at Brooklyn Fed, Goren had left the squad room with Logan once the paperwork was done. Around four in the morning, she had received a call from her very drunk partner, asking for a ride home. She never figured out why, once he reached a certain stage of inebriation, he forgot how to call for a cab and called her instead. But she had gone to get him, surprised to find Logan still with him. She took them both back to Goren's place. Logan crashed on the couch and she guided Goren back to his bedroom.

His tie was long gone, tucked away in his jacket pocket. As she helped him undress, she gradually became aware of his closeness, of the scent of his cologne mixed with beer and cigarettes. He placed his hands on her hips and leaned in closer. Before she knew what was happening, he was kissing her. She started to pull away, but he resisted, and she found herself lost in his kiss. She slid her hands into his hair, kissing him back, entirely overwhelmed by his passion. He pulled her down onto the bed with him and continued to kiss her. When he broke the kiss, he gently nuzzled her hair and pulled her into a close embrace. Softly, he whispered into her ear, "I love you." Then he drifted to sleep.

She'd remained where she was, trying not to notice how comfortable she was in his arms. Once she was certain he was sleeping soundly, she slid from his arms and the bed. Standing in the dark room, lit only by the glow of the streetlight outside his window, she watched him. Finally, she slipped off his shoes, covered him and left the room. Retrieving a blanket from the hall closet, she covered Logan, too, and then she left.

If he remembered that night, he never brought it up, and she often wondered what would have happened if she hadn't left before he woke up. Although she followed his lead and never mentioned it either, she had never forgotten it. She could still hear his voice as it whispered the three words she most longed to hear from him, "I love you." Another six years would pass before he said them to her again.

He had surprised her when he began showing an active interest in her beyond the job, about six months after he began seeing Gyson. When his interest continued, she began to respond to his shy advances. Things progressed from there, and she soon discovered something she had suspected for years: he was very physical with his affection. He craved physical contact. He could be demanding, but he was sweet and gentle as well. Once they stepped into a physical relationship, there was no going back for either of them, and if Joe Hannah suspected anything, he never gave a clue.

Her eyes constantly scanned the street, looking for their suspect. His hand slowly slipped under her shirt. She swatted it away. Over and over. He had unending patience for some things. She struggled not to laugh, preferring not to give their back-up anything about which to gossip.

He moved his mouth closer to her ear, whispering his intentions to her. Distracted, she forgot about his hand. He switched off her mike and tickled her side. "Dammit, Bobby," she laughed. "This isn't a drive-in. We're supposed to be watching for Jarden."

"I am watching," he insisted.

"Not if you're doing that, you're not."

"I can multitask."

She laughed as he nuzzled her ear, slowly working his way to her mouth. With a soft groan, she briefly allowed herself to be lost in his kiss. When he withdrew, he softly whispered, "I love you."

Those were three words she never tired of hearing. "I love you, too," she replied.

"Marry me," he insisted.

She smiled. "Again?"

"Again and again," he answered, returning her smile.

She gently caressed his cheek. "You know, if we steam up these windows, we're gonna get busted."

He sighed softly and leaned back in his seat. "Tell me you don't appreciate the thrill of risk."

"I know how much you appreciate it, but I'm still not letting you ravage me in the car. Save it for later. Now I'm turning my mike back on, so behave."

"Spoil sport."

"I'll make it up to you later."

He showed no disappointment, and she offered him a warm smile as she turned her mike on, then reached over to turn on his. He stole another kiss and she poked him.

Reluctantly, he settled back in his seat, but he continued to stroke her hair, which she allowed. He had to do something with his hands.

* * *

He spotted their suspect turning the corner at the end of the block, shortly after two a.m. Jarden saw them get out of the SUV and he took off at a dead run. Goren didn't hesitate to pursue with Eames right behind him, calling the situation into her mike to mobilize their back-up team.

Goren was gaining on the guy, and Eames cut to the right, down an alley, to head him off. As she got to the end of the alley, the rapport of gunfire rent the still air. She slid to a stop, her heart pounding hard from exertion—and fear for her partner. She drew her weapon and cautiously turned the corner out of the alley. She caught sight of the suspect turning the corner at the end of the block, but Goren was no longer in pursuit. She ran toward the corner as she radioed the suspect's location and direction of travel, trusting the back-up team to continue the pursuit. Then she allowed her loyalty, and her heart, to dictate her actions and rounded the corner to backtrack the route the suspect had taken. The neighborhood was criss-crossed with alleyways and she quickly checked each one.

She came to a stop when she saw him at the far end of an alley half a block from where the suspect turned. He was struggling to his feet. She broke into a run and reached his side as he staggered, unsteady. "Bobby?"'

He waved his hand. "'M'okay, Alex," he said, looking around at the ground.

She found his gun, which had fallen from his hand when he went down, and she tucked it into the waistband of her pants. "There," she said. "I have your gun."

He took two steps in the wrong direction. She grabbed his arm, turning him a quarter turn to the left. She guided him out of the alley toward the SUV in which they'd spent most of the night. Something was wrong and she wondered if he'd hit his head when he went down. As they got to the Explorer, their back-up radioed that they had the suspect in custody. She instructed them to take him to Major Case as Bobby leaned against the vehicle, breathing heavily.

"Bobby?" she asked, her voice thick with worry.

He waved his hand again. "Just...give me...a min-minute," he huffed. "To...to catch...my breath."

She saw four bullets buried in the Kevlar of his vest, two in his chest and two in his abdomen. She had counted at least that many shots, maybe more. It was not uncommon for the impact of bullets against a Kevlar vest to fracture ribs. She needed to get him to a hospital to be evaluated. When she reached past him with the keys to unlock his door, he shifted to his right, clear of the door. His vest rode up a little. She noticed an odd shadow on his otherwise white shirt. Thinking the shadow was cast by the nearest streetlight, she reached out to touch it. Her heart lurched at the dampness beneath her fingertips, which came away sticky. _Blood..._

Struggling to remain calm, she unlocked the car. "Get in," she said urgently.

"Alex," he murmured, still short of breath.

"Shh," she whispered. "We're going to the hospital."

"But..." he began as she leaned across him to fasten his seat belt.

"Don't argue."

He leaned forward a little and pressed his lips against her cheek. She turned to look at him. Even in the deep shadows of the car's interior, she could tell he was pale. Somewhere, he was losing blood. She knew she had to hurry, and hurry she did.

In some places across the nation, traffic slept with the city in the deep of night, but New York was not one of those places. She switched on the dome light and wove her way among the omnipresent taxis that filled the streets. She spoke into the microphone on her wrist with urgency. "This is Eames, enroute to St. Clare's with my partner. He was injured in an exchange of gunfire with the suspect; the extent of his injuries is unknown. Let them know we're coming!"

"I don't need a hospital," he grumbled.

"Then humor me," she insisted.

Her attention remained on the vehicles around her as she weaved in and out among them, grateful for the ones that pulled out of her way when they saw the flashing red light and silently cursing those that did not. Her attention shifted to her partner when he moved to unfasten his vest.

"Leave it alone," she chided gently.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because you're hurt," she answered.

Whatever his injuries, she knew that removing his vest would be a catastrophic mistake. Right now, the stiff firmness of the kevlar was helping to control the bleeding from the injuries he suffered.

He fell silent, struggling to remain alert. She reached over to grasp his arm. "Are you still with me?"

"Where else..." He scowled as his train of thought wandered. He redirected himself. "Where else...would I be?"

"Bobby..."

He placed a cool hand over hers and lightly stroked her fingers, a gesture that was meant to reassure but did not. She pressed the accelerator closer to the floor.

* * *

When she pulled into the ambulance driveway, a trauma team stood waiting for them. Goren turned his head toward her as she stopped the car. He grasped her wrist and looked into her face. "I love you," he said with sudden conviction.

"I love you, too," she replied.

Satisfied, he nodded as they opened his door and took off his seat belt. She whispered a silent prayer as they rushed him into the hospital. Once she moved the car and parked it down the block, she slid out of her seat. Her seatbelt caught in the door. As she turned to tuck in her seat belt, she noticed a wet glimmer on his seat. Climbing back into the Explorer, she touched his seat and looked at her fingers. Her heart jumped into her throat. His seat was saturated with blood.

Jumping out of the car, she slammed the door and ran back down the block to the hospital.

Joe Hannah was already there when she hurried through the doors. She stared at him. "How long did it take me to get here?" she asked, her mind clouded in a fog of worry.

"Not long at all," he assured her. "I was in the area when they called me. I got here just before you did."

"Bobby..."

Hannah slipped a meaty arm around her shoulders, guiding her into the waiting area. "They're working on him," he assured her. "I need you to tell me what happened. He was vested, right?"

She nodded as he eased her into a chair and sat beside her. "Yes, he was vested," she confirmed. "But I don't know what happened. He exchanged fire with the suspect. At least four bullets hit his vest, but...there was blood, Captain. A lot of blood."

"When they hauled Jarden to the car to be transported to Major Case, they realized he'd been hit, too. He's being treated at Bellevue. Goren hit him in the lower abdomen."

"Oh, here," she said, handing over her partner's Glock, as was policy for any officer-involved shooting. It would be returned to him after IAD completed their investigation. She wasn't worried about Internal Affairs. Bobby never used his sidearm unless it was a last resort. "Bobby's a good shot," she murmured.

"Apparently, so is Jarden."

Eames got up from her seat. "I need to check on him," she said.

Hannah followed her to the information desk, but the only information they could get was that he was being worked on and they should wait until someone came out to get them.

Eames looked like she was going to shoot the messenger until Hannah took her arm and gently tugged, guiding her back into the waiting area. "They'll let us know," he said.

She glared at him, but her look softened when she saw the worry in his blue eyes. That worry reminded her that Hannah was more than their captain. He was one of the few longtime friends Bobby had in the rank and file. His old partner was now comforting his current partner.

"Captain..." she began, stopping when her voice wavered. She took a deep breath. "I can't...This can't...happen again..."

"What can't happen again?" he asked.

"I can't lose another...partner..."

He wasn't aware of any partner she had lost, and then he remembered Joe Dutton. He looked toward the door that led into the depths of the emergency room, and all the pieces fell into place. "Wait here," he said.

He strode to the desk and spoke to the clerk. Minutes later, he and Eames were walking through those doors.


	2. Unbearable Loss

There was a flurry of intense activity in a trauma room in the back corner of the emergency room. The medical staff responded with controlled urgency as they came and went in a hurry. Alex caught snippets of conversation each time the door was opened. _...typed and cross-matched for him...OR team ready...get him up there now..._

She looked at Hannah, whose expression was serious. He was worried. The door swung open again and a doctor approached them, his scrubs bloodied and his face grim. Everything around them faded into the background as he spoke, "You are here with Detective Goren?"

She nodded, apprehensive. "Yes. I have medical proxy for him."

"Let's sit down over here."

He led them to a small room halfway down the hall. A sign to the side of the doorway read 'Consultation' in inch-high letters. Once they were seated, he began, "Kevlar vests save lives, and that is a proven fact, but they are not fool-proof. He took six hits. The four bullets buried in his vest caused some extesive bruising and fractured two ribs. There is another bullet in his hip. The sixth bullet entered here-" He pointed to a spot on his left side, just above where the vest ended. "And it clipped the very edge of his vest, which made it tumble. It did a lot of damage. He's lost a lot of blood, and I can't stop the bleeding. We're giving him blood and fluid, but he's in shock. His blood pressure is very low. He's on his way to surgery now. It's his only chance. The surgeon who will be operating is one of the best. Believe me, whatever chance he has to survive, Victor Kyle will give it to him."

Alex felt her heart drop into her belly. This couldn't be happening. _Not again…Please God, not again,_ she prayed silently.

The doctor said, "You'll find a coffee machine, crackers, peanut butter, and some other snacks in the surgical waiting area. It will likely be a long wait. I can have someone show you there."

Hannah replied, "No, thank you, doctor. This isn't our first rodeo, unfortunately. We know the way."

He and Alex went to the waiting room, prepared for a long wait.

* * *

They were the only ones left in the waiting area when the surgeon came out from the surgical area. He looked at them for a long moment before he approached. "You folks are waiting for word about Robert Goren?"

Alex's expression was a mix of anticipation and worry. "Yes, we are."

"You're his family?"

"Yes. I..." She glanced at Hannah and changed her mind about what she was going to say. Instead, she repeated what she told the emergency room doctor. "I'm his partner and I have medical proxy for him."

He was exhausted and his scrub shirt was bloody. He sat in the chair beside her and looked grim. "We did all we could," he said. "There was just too much damage, too much blood loss. He was unstable and in shock when I got him. His organ systems began to shut down and then his heart stopped. We brought him back twice before it, too, gave out. It was too much for him. I am very sorry."

Alex struggled to contain the emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. "I..." She stopped when her voice caught in her throat. Regrouping, she tried again. "Thank you, doctor."

He touched her arm. "Again, I am very sorry."

She just nodded. The doctor looked at Hannah, who nodded at him, too stunned to find his voice. He had been friends with Bobby for nearly two decades. The loss was profound for him.

The doctor left them to their grief. Hannah slipped his arm around Alex's shoulder. She trembled and he tightened his arm around her. "Come on, Alex," he said softly. "I'll take you home. I'll send someone from the squad to pick up the Explorer."

When she started to object, he gently shushed her. "I insist," he said firmly.

She didn't try to refuse again. The ride to her Queens home was a quiet one, each absorbed in their own thoughts. Hannah pulled into her driveway and escorted her to her door. "Is there someone I can call for you?" he asked. "Your sister maybe?"

She shook her head. "No, no, thank you, captain."

"I would rather someone be here with you."

"I can…I can call Logan."

"Let me call him for you, for my own piece of mind."

She handed him her phone as she fished out her keys. He found Logan in her contacts list and called him. When he was told what had happened, Logan promised Hannah he would head right to Alex's place.

The captain handed Alex her phone. "Logan is on his way. Do you want me to stay until he gets here?"

"That's not necessary, captain."

He moved closer to her and very softly said, "I've known Bobby for a very long time, and I know..." He paused. "...I know he loved you very much. And I know you love him. I can't tell you how sorry I am. If there is anything I can do, anything at all, don't hesitate to call me, any time."

"Thank you, captain."

Hannah squeezed her arm and returned to his car. She watched him leave and went into the house.

 _'I'm sorry.' They're always sorry,_ she thought bitterly. They always said they were sorry, and then they moved on to destroy more lives. She had lost the man she loved, and all they could say was they were sorry. She was the one who had to find a way to move on, to continue her life with him gone from it. She had done it once. How was she supposed to do it again? What had she done to deserve losing her love, not once, but twice? Sitting on the couch, she buried her face in her hands and sobbed. _Oh, Bobby…_

* * *

Victor Kyle hesitated just inside the door, his hands balled into fists. He could feel their grief, and his heart lurched. Another set of lives destroyed by just a few words. He turned and reached for the doorknob, but a voice stopped him. "Just where are you going, Doctor Kyle?"

Kyle clenched his fists. "I hate lying to families, destroying lives! It's not right!"

"Not families, doctor, co-workers. You are well paid for your silence."

Kyle turned to face the big, muscular man who stood behind him. "Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it."

"Then think of the children whose lives are saved by the money we give you. We need this man, but in order for him to be effective, Robert Goren must die."

"Yeah, well, I just told his captain and his partner that he did."

"We will take over from here. You know what you have to do."

"You're a bastard, Gallagher."

"Just remember your place, doctor."

Scowling, he turned on his heel and returned to the man who was now dead to the few who loved him. He wasn't out of the woods yet. Victor Kyle still had a life to save.

* * *

Alex was still on the sofa, quietly sobbing, when a knock sounded from the door. She hesitated, but the knock sounded again. Slowly, she got up and went to the door. Pulling it open, she stood face-to-face with Mike. Silent, she stood there, looking at him, afraid to say anything. Her emotions teetered at the edge of her control. There was deep sorrow in his red-rimmed green eyes. "I left as soon as I talked to Hannah," he said.

No other words were necessary as she stepped forward into his waiting arms. He had been Bobby's best friend, and he was the only one she would allow to step into her grief. She cried against his chest as he held her and guided her toward the couch. It was a long time before she quieted, and even longer before she spoke. He gave her the time she needed.

"I warned him, Mike," she said finally, her head resting against his chest. "I told him I wouldn't be able to do this again."

"One a day at a time, honey. We'll just take it one day at a time. We'll do it together."

"What am I going to do without him? I went through this once. I can't…I can't do it again."

He kissed her forehead. "You'll get through it, sweetheart. I'll be with you every step of the way, I promise."

He had lost his best friend, but Alex…she had lost so much more, and he was sensitive to that. Several years ago, he and Bobby were playing pool when their conversation took an odd turn. He never did figure out how his friend's mind worked. One minute they were talking about pets they'd had as kids; the next, the conversation turned toward 'what if' scenarios. Bobby's biggest concern had been for Alex. He knew how difficult it had been for her to lose Joe. What if she had to go through it again? The thought terrified Bobby. Mike had promised that if anything ever happened to Bobby, he would take care of Alex. Mike Logan always kept his word.


	3. This One's A Fighter

The days that followed were among the most difficult Alex and Mike had ever survived. Mike grieved deeply for the loss of his friend, but he was more worried about Alex. She closed herself off from the sympathy of others, even the family to whom she was so close. They didn't understand her grief as they had when she'd lost her first husband; they didn't know just how close she was to Bobby. A carefully guarded secret threw up a wall that only one man had ever breached.

Mike didn't know much about Joe Dutton, but he had been a first-hand witness to the love Alex shared with Bobby. It had been a long time coming, and he was the only one around whom they felt comfortable being themselves with each other. Bobby had struggled with his love for his partner for years before finally coming to terms with his feelings and letting them show. Nothing had delighted Mike more than seeing Alex respond positively to her partner's advances. Now, when she was falling apart, Mike was there to hold her and to keep her together in front of others. She shared the depths of her true grief with him alone.

He spent his nights on her couch. During the day, he was there as she tackled the impossibly difficult task of making the arrangements to bury another love. He stayed close by during the long hours of the closed casket wake, when brother and sister officers paid their respects to their fallen comrade. He sat beside her, along with Joe Hannah, during the funeral, four days later, when they laid Bobby to rest with full police honors. Mike was her touchstone, her rock through the storm of losing the man she loved, and he never wavered.

* * *

Hearing returned first. He heard the steady beat of a cardiac monitor. Next, came his vision. He squinted against the light as he tried to see beyond it. Finally came the pain and the nausea. He groaned and shifted, seeking a different position, hoping it wouldn't hurt so much. The monitor's cadence increased and an alarm sounded, an annoying electronic alarm that irritated him.

He heard shuffling, then a voice. "Here," it said kindly. "This will help."

A brief burning sensation in the back of his hand preceded a warm, muffled feeling that chased away his pain. The alarm fell silent, replaced once more by a steady beeping. It no longer hurt to breathe and the fire in his chest cooled. He was sleepy, but he struggled not to give in to it. "Alex?" he groaned softly, his voice hoarse.

He heard someone shifting beside the bed, and he groaned his partner's name again, seeking her. The voice that drifted to his ears was not hers. "Hello, Detective Goren."

Forcing his eyes open, he studied the man with the deep voice, trying to identify him. "I...I don't know you," he said, uncertain.

"No, you don't. Not yet—but you will."

"My partner…"

"It's time for you to move on, detective."

"What...? I don't understand. Where is she?"

He struggled to push himself up from the bed, but the man reached out and gently pressed him back onto the bed. Bobby struggled, but the world around him spun, fading into darkness.

* * *

He woke with a groan, pain seared through his chest and a knot twisted his gut. His memory was hazy. He squinted and blinked, trying to clear his vision. The walls were cement blocks, painted white, and there was medical equipment around the room. There was one door, but no windows. He remembered pain, a lot of pain. He heard movement in the room, and he searched for the source.

Someone approached the bed, a big man, about his size, with dark skin and hair. The guy had maybe fifty pounds on him, but it was all muscle. He was built like a linebacker. "Welcome back, detective."

His voice was deep and sounded familiar. "Do I know you?" he asked, searching his fuzzy memory.

The man shook his head. "Not yet. My name is Kinley Gallagher. I am the man who recruited you."

Bobby frowned. "Recruited me? For what?"

"For very important work. You'll learn more about it in time. Right now, you need to rest."

Bobby looked around the room again. "Where is my partner?"

Gallagher held his arms out from his sides. "Right here."

Bobby forced himself up onto his elbows, alarmed. "What the hell are you talking about? Where is Alex? What happened to her?"

"Nothing has happened to her. She's fine. You were the shooting victim. To Detective Eames, and to everyone else in your former life, you are dead."

"What? I…I don't understand."

"You were shot in the line of duty, Goren. They buried you two weeks ago."

"They...what? I'm not dead. What, did they bury an empty coffin?"

"Something like that."

"No...No..." He struggled to sit up. "My life..."

"Your life belongs to us."

"You don't understand. My partner..." His agitation continued to increase. "No..."

"She will move on."

"No, she won't. She...She's been through this once before! It'll... She won't be able to... You don't understand what you've done!"

Gallagher gave him a hard stare. "What exactly have we done? We took an outcast, a loner with no family, and we are giving him a chance to live a worthwhile life."

"My life _was_ worthwhile! I was...for the first time in my life, I was happy! My life was good!" The monitor above his bed alarmed as his heart rate escalated. "My partner...she won't do well...not with this loss! She buried one husband and it took years for her to recover. This time...you will destroy her."

"This time?"

"She...she was my _wife_ , dammit! You've done more than take me away from her! This will destroy her! I...I have to go. I've gotta find her..."

Gallagher was distracted as he processed what Bobby said, but he reached out and grasped Bobby's arm. "I'm sorry. We cannot allow that."

Goren struggled to get up. "The hell you can't!"

Gallagher grabbed his shoulders and looked him in the eyes, gravely serious. "Detective Goren, if you make direct contact with anyone from your past, we will be forced to act and we do not want to do that. We will allow you time to adjust to your new circumstances, but do not try our patience too far. We do not want to resort to reprogramming you."

Bobby shoved him away. "I'm not a fucking robot."

"No, but without our intervention, you would have lost your life. You belong to us, until we say otherwise."

Bobby glared at him, his expression defiant. "I don't belong to anyone but her."

Gallagher dusted off his shoulders. "You'll have time to adapt."

As he turned and walked away, Bobby swung his fist out and sent the tray table crashing to the floor. Gallagher turned as he got out of the bed. He didn't move as Bobby advanced on him, furious. "It took me a lifetime to find her! I'm not going to give her up now!"

The door crashed open and two burly men dressed in hospital scrubs rushed into the room. After several minutes of scuffling, they wrestled him to the floor and Gallagher injected a syringe full of medication into his thigh. The two men held him down until he stopped struggling and he slipped into unconsciousness. As they hauled him back into the bed, the door opened and a small, thin man entered the room. He was dressed in a dark suit, and the glasses perched on his thin nose made him look like an owl. Gallagher discarded the syringe and turned to him. "Mangus, look into his claims. I need to know if he was indeed married."

"That would be unfortunate," Mangus agreed. "But what's done is done."

"Unfortunately. But check anyway."

With a nod, Mangus left the room. A nurse entered a few minutes later and Gallagher left the room.

* * *

Gallagher looked up from his desk when Mangus entered his office. Mangus held out a piece of paper. Gallagher studied the marriage certificate. "How did we miss this?"

"We knew they were lovers, but this...they were very careful to keep it under wraps. The marriage took place two months ago in Connecticut and nothing was filed with the department. No change in status, not even an address change. The only witnesses to the ceremony were his friend, Mike Logan, and the court clerk, Monica Fordham. It was unexpected and easily overlooked. Other than her, he has no family aside from a fugitive nephew he has had no contact with since the fall of 2007, just after his mother died and about eight months before his brother was killed. We weren't entirely wrong."

"This is a serious omission, Mangus. He flipped out over his situation because of her. I'm afraid I will have to resort to serious measures. Send an agent to keep tabs on her. He will cooperate to keep her safe."

"He won't like it."

"No, he won't. Not at all. But he will remain compliant. She is our best leverage with him."

Mangus nodded, but continued to frown. "I'll put Harrison on it."

Gallagher nodded and Mangus left the office. Ten minutes later, he was informed that Goren was awake again and very agitated. With a sigh, he said, "I'll be right there."

Sometimes he hated his job.

* * *

Goren was out of his bed when Gallagher entered the room. Gallagher motioned to the two orderlies near the door to be ready in case Goren got out of hand again. He moved closer to Goren and said, "We need to talk."

"I'm done talking. I never agreed to this and I want out of here. I'm going home."

"I'm sorry. You can't do that. You are dead, Goren. Dead and buried. I am sorry for our oversight, but what's done is done."

"Bullshit," Bobby growled. "I. Am. Not. Dead!"

"To them you are. Again, I am sorry I have to do this. If you want her to stay safe, you'll do what we tell you to do."

Goren saw red at Gallagher's threat. "You son of a bitch!"

He lunged at Gallagher, but was intercepted by the orderlies and taken to the floor. Gallagher shook his head as he retrieved another syringe of medication and injected Goren with it. "This is getting tedious," he complained as Goren stopped fightig.

One of the orderlies looked up at him. "Are you sure about this one, Mr. Gallagher? We haven't had a fighter like this in a long time."

Gallagher nodded. "I'm positive. He's exactly the man I want."

He left the room, knowing that, for all his fight, Goren would follow his orders. His partner—his _wife_ 's—life would depend on it.


	4. The Rings Around Her Finger

Arriving home after a long hard day, Eames stood in front of the dresser in her bedroom as she removed her jewelry. She undid the clasp of her necklace and removed the small cross from her neck, placing it in a little, shell-shaped dish on the dresser. Her fingers closed around the two rings on her left hand, and she twisted them on her finger. She chose to wear those rings openly now. She had no reason to hide anything anymore. She slid the rings off her finger and looked at them, resting in the palm of her right hand: a simple gold band and his mother's ring. A tear rolled down her cheek. Bobby had been a complicated man, a man of contrasts, a man full of surprises. After being his partner for so many years, she thought she knew him. She didn't think he could surprise her any more. She was wrong.

The last thing she expected of him was a profession of love. It was the first of many surprises. On the job, nothing much changed. He was the same man he had always been, dedicated to finding justice for the victims of the crimes they investigated: tough on suspects, tender with victims. Once they left 1PP, however, his tough guy persona faded away. He craved physical contact with her, and she welcomed his tender touch. He let her know that he would give her the world; all she had to do was ask.

Given his past, the one thing she didn't quite expect from him was romance. She expected pragmatism, liberally dosed with a sense of reality, not thoughtful devotion. She expected quiet dinners in small restaurants around the city, not picnic lunches in secluded glens upstate. She expected a standard agreement of practicality, not a legitimate, will-you-have-me proposal.

Alex had loved him for years, and she freely admitted that, but her love was not what she thought it was. She told herself over and over that she loved him like a brother. However, she avoided examining that love too closely, never comparing her love for her partner with her love for her brothers. She knew sibling love, and somewhere along the way, the brotherly love she felt toward Bobby had changed. She didn't know exactly when, but it had.

As she looked at her rings, her mind revisited the past: the days she had received each ring. The first ring came after a harrowing day. A suspect fired on them unexpectedly, and Bobby caught a bullet in his arm, just below his right elbow. They argued at the hospital when he refused to let them admit him. The bullet had gone through and through, glancing off his ulna. He hated hospitals and argued that he would rest better at home. She conceded angrily and refused to talk to him during the car ride to his apartment. She stopped twice—to fill his prescriptions and to pick up something for dinner at the Chinese place three blocks from his apartment. When they got to his place, she dished out their dinner and they ate in silence.

He only ate half his dinner. The pain medicine made him nauseous. He pushed his plate aside and watched her pick at her food. Finally, he scooted his chair closer to hers and grabbed a napkin from the holder in the center of the table. Pulling a pen from his pocket, he drew a circle on the paper. "What does that mean to you?" he asked.

He caught her off-guard, something at which he was very good. As she studied the circle, trying to figure out what he was fishing for, her anger faded. Although she knew better, she always tried to figure out what swirled through his beautiful mind, never able to come to any firm conclusions. He waited patiently, as he always did. Finally, irritated, she said, "It's a zero. It's nothing."

He traced the circle again. "Or it's a circle," he said softly in that intense way he had when he was making a point. "It's continuous, never-ending, eternal, complete."

She nodded. "Okay. So what's your point?"

"Continuous, never-ending, eternal, complete," he repeated. He held up his left hand, empty and then not. A ring appeared as if from nowhere and he held it between his thumb and forefinger. "But it can also be empty," he said softly. "Alone and lonely."

He studied the ring, turning it over and over in his fingers. She recognized it. It was his mother's ring. She waited patiently for him to continue, knowing he would once his mind settled on the right words to express his thoughts.

After a few minutes, he did continue. "The emptiness can be filled…the loneliness, chased away..."

He continued to look at the ring, his thoughts churning and drifting. Then he looked up, as though remembering that she was there. In truth, she was never far from his thoughts. He drew in a deep breath and held up the ring. "Empty," he said.

Then he took her left hand, wincing as he moved his injured arm. He slipped his mother's ring onto her finger and said, "No longer empty…or lonely…if…if you'll have me."

She was stunned, and her mind grasped at straws, unable to wrap her mind around his words. "Bobby, you've had a lot of medicine tonight…"

"No!" he snapped. His upper lip twitched the way it did when he was angry and trying not to show it. Sometimes it was his only tell. He worked to quell his anger before he went on, "No. That has nothing to do with this. I've given this a lot of thought. I am not an impulsive man, Alex. My-My brother always told me I should take more chances, but that just isn't who I am. I was planning to ask you tonight, maybe under more romantic conditions: candles, wine...but, well, I hadn't planned on being shot, so that kind of tossed a monkey wrench into my plans." He waved his hand in the air. "But, never mind that… it's neither here nor there."

He shifted his chair and took her hand in his, softly kissing it. He looked up into her eyes and leaned closer. "Alex, we've been through a lot, especially the past few years. I know I'm not perfect, and I may never live up to the past you once had, but...will you, will you marry me?"

She did not realize what it had taken for him to get to the point that he was ready to propose to her, and she had not expected it. Something told her that if she said no, he was not likely to ask her again, so she had to quickly assess her heart. Was she ready to step into another marriage to a fellow cop? Cop or not, she loved Bobby, and she didn't have it in her to let the past destroy her present. She slid her hand from his and wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. She whispered one word in his ear, "Yes."

From that moment on, his mother's ring became hers.

The gold band that went so well with her engagement ring was placed on her finger two months later. Circumstances demanded that they keep their marriage under wraps. The only one who knew about their union was Mike Logan, who drove to Connecticut with them for the ceremony. When the time came to exchange rings, Mike placed the small gold band in Bobby's palm. Bobby then showed her the inscription on the inside of the ring. Fine, elegant script on the inside of the ring promised: _I will always love you._

Not a single day passed since that simple ceremony that she did not fall in love with him a little more. And not a single day passed since she lost him that she did not miss him more.

She set the rings in the dish with her necklace and went into the bathroom to shower. The hot water from the showerhead washed away the hot tears that fell from her eyes. _Oh, Bobby..._


	5. Orientation

The morning dawned bright and sunny, with the promise of being a good day. Gallagher stood at the window of his room in the hospital compound, just outside New York City, where Goren had been transferred as soon as he was stable. The grass seemed greener today for some reason. He took a sip of hot coffee and watched the birds at the bird feeder on the balcony. The last few months had been difficult for him. His partner had been killed in a freak accident that left him lucky to be alive. He took the loss hard. His own injuries had left him incapacitated for many months, but he was finally fully recovered and glad to be getting back out in the field.

Goren was going to be his new partner, but he had his doubts about how it was going to work...or even if it was going to work. To the best of his knowledge, the Company had never made such a huge mistake before. Mangus and his people were meticulous with their research. How they had missed a wife, Gallagher had no idea. Unfortunately, what was done could not be undone. They had never before sent an operative back to their former life and he did not see that happening now.

A vital aspect of their recruitment process was finding people who were unattached, without parents, spouses or children to encumber them—no family to be targeted by others, no one to worry about or be worried for. It was an invigorating freedom. Every operative he knew was entirely devoted to the job. They had no distractions outside their own circles. The only ones ever at risk because of Company business were the operatives, which was the way it should be.

Goren presented a problem. His wife and his buddy Logan were links to a past that he would have to surrender, something he showed no sign of being willing to do. They were a weak link in the Company's chain of existence. There was a chance, however small, that someday they could be endangered by their connection to Goren. In all honesty, though, how likely was that? Did the Company bear any responsibility for their long-term safety? But whether or not the Company should take any action, now or in the future, was not his concern. That was the current hot topic for debate among the top brass in the Company. He had his own headache. Goren was his responsibility, and it would fall to him to make sure his partner made no contact with his past, a task Gallagher did not relish. Goren could easily turn a tragedy into a catastrophe, and Gallagher hoped he would not make the mistake of thinking the Company was bluffing. They did not bluff, ever. Eventually, Goren would come to learn that, hopefully, before it was too late. Gallagher would do his best to keep his partner in line, though he knew Goren would not make it easy.

Gallagher finished his coffee and turned from the window. He set the cup in the sink of the little kitchenette and left the room.

* * *

The first thing Gallagher did when he entered his partner's hospital room was look at Goren's breakfast tray. Barely touched. He glanced at the orderly sitting by the window. He was the size of a gorilla and all muscle, but he seemed relaxed. As he approached the bed, Goren watched him with a mixture of caution and controlled fury.

"You really should eat," Gallagher said, seeing the rage in Goren's eyes. "All that anger needs something to fuel it."

"I want to go home," Goren said, his voice tight.

"I know you do. We'll go home once you no longer need medical care."

"Home," Goren repeated angrily. "To my wife."

Gallagher's understanding fed his patience. "She's not your wife any longer, my friend. She's your widow. Your union was dissolved when you died."

"I. Am. Not. Dead. She is still my wife."

"'Fraid not."

Without warning, Goren grabbed Gallagher, but the wiry agent was on his guard. Still recovering from his injuries, Goren was easily subdued. By the time the orderly reached the bed from his chair by the window, Gallagher had Goren under control. He waved off the orderly and slowly released Goren. "There's no use fighting it, Goren. Your destiny has been altered, and if you want your widow to stay safe, you'll accept that."

"Harm her and I swear I'll kill you," Goren growled.

"Harm her? No, that's the last thing I want to do. Just keep in mind: As long as you do your job and follow the rules, she and Logan will be safe. You have my word."

His promise made Goren hesitate. "What are you talking about?"

Gallagher pulled up a chair. "Welcome to the Company," he said.

And so it began.

* * *

The hardest part of Gallagher's job, as he knew it would be, was convincing Goren to move on from his previous life, never to make contact with anyone he knew when he was NYPD Detective First-Grade Robert Goren.

"The Company has been in existence since the early twentieth century," Gallagher explained. "I know how you feel now, but trust me, we are not the bad guys."

"Company? Which company?"

"Not one you have ever heard of. It was never given an official name. It's just the Company. That's all anyone has ever called it."

The first step for Goren was always to gather information. Gallagher knew that, and he went along with it. The more information Goren had, the better the decisions he would make. The sooner he understood what it was going to take for him to keep his wife and friend safe, the better it would be for all concerned.

"The Company recruits people who have no families in their lives, no parents, spouses, children, siblings..."

"In short, no one who cares enough about them to miss them."

"In short, yes. It's the way it has to be. Because they have no one to worry about, or to worry about them, our operatives are free to do their jobs."

"Suppose someone does miss us?"

"There's always a way to make someone go missing so that no one will look, if anyone cared enough to even try. A letter of resignation, a 'dear John' letter, in your case, a casket..."

"An empty casket."

"True, but they don't know that. If it wasn't for us, they _would_ have buried you. Civilian doctors are good. Ours are better. You needed the better doctors."

Goren searched his memory for the last minutes he had spent with Alex. He remembered the stakeout, the chase, the confrontation and exchange of gunfire between him and their suspect, now charged with a the murder of a police officer. The only thing he remembered about the car ride to the hospital was Alex, her grim determination and worried urgency. And he remembered their last exchange of words:

 _'I love you.'_

 _'I love you, too.'_

Goren let Gallagher's words mull about in his head. "You came along about a dozen years too late," he complained.

"You've been on our radar for a very long time, since your Army days, actually."

Goren nodded his head. "A screwed-up kid with an absent father, a crazy mother, a junkie brother..."

"...who seemed to have a knack for figuring things out. After you hooked-up with Gage, we knew we wanted you, but we had to bide our time. Once your mother died, we began to plan your recruitment. Everything fell into place when Wallace killed your brother and Gage killed her. We had no idea you had become so close to your partner. We were too patient, it seems."

"If you had taken me right before or right after I got transferred to Major Case, it would have worked out. No one would have missed me. My mother was at Carmel Ridge; I had no idea where my brother was. My father died right around that time. You should have taken me then. No one cared enough about me to have missed me. Transition from that life to this one would have been easy. But no...you had to wait until I got my life on track. You waited until I got married, until I had a real life that I cared about living. Great fucking timing, Gallagher. Her first husband was a cop, killed in the line of duty. She swore to herself she would never love another cop, much less marry one. Then, she fell in love with me, and she broke her rule...and I broke her heart. Give me just one reason why I shouldn't break your fucking neck."

"I'm your new partner."

"You're joking."

"Nope. I'm your handler and your partner. I've never been both before, but what it means is you are my responsibility. Whatever happens to you is all on me. Think about that."

"Think about what?"

Gallagher shrugged. "Anything can happen," he said cryptically. He pulled out a photograph and handed it over to Goren. "She's a pretty woman."

Goren looked at the picture of his wife, dressed in black, her face a mask of grief. It tore him apart to see the pain he had caused her, however unintentional. "It didn't have to be this way," he said softly.

"I know. She'll smile again someday. You'll have a picture of that, too. I promise."

"H-How is she doing?"

Gallagher paused, studying Goren's face. "She's okay. She has her family, and she has Logan. He's part of her past with you that comforts her. He's been there for her. He grieves, too, and they have each other to lean on. They're gonna be okay."

"And me? What about me?"

For the first time, it struck Gallagher how very difficult this ordeal had been on Goren. With Eames, he had the life that had eluded his younger self. He had a chance for a family. He had love. Gallagher's expression reflected his words. "I'm sorry, Goren. I really am. But there's nothing I can do. What's done is done and you're gonna have to move on, just like she will."

"And if I can't?"

Gallagher tightened his mouth into a straight line. The Company had been good to him, and he believed in what they did, but right now, he hated them. "You will because that's the only option you have."

He watched Goren tuck the picture of his wife into a book that he had given him. "What now?" Goren asked.

Gallagher couldn't read his partner's expression, but in time, they would come to know each other as no one else did. "Now, we keep going with your orientation. There's only one criteria for the cases the Company takes: no one else will touch them. Cops can't do anything because a crime hasn't been committed yet, DA won't prosecute because they think they can't win, the feds dismiss a missing person report for whatever reason. When people have nowhere else to turn, they have us. I guess you might say we're the last resort. We are shadow operatives. We work below the radar and above the law. We do whatever we have to do to bring justice to people failed by the system."

Curiosity got the better of him. "Above the law? I'm a cop. No one is above the law."

"You _were_ a cop. You're not any more. We make our own laws, which are, by and large, the same as the laws of the land, but we aren't constrained by the weaknesses within the justice system. We are not cops, so we can protect those that the police can't. We don't exist, so we aren't tied down by any laws but our own."

"If no one knows we exist, how do they find us when they need us?"

"They don't. We find them. Most of the time, they never even know what we've done."

"Their problems just what? Go away?"

"Pretty much. You'll figure it out. After a period of adjustment, our operatives actually prefer our way. They enjoy being with the Company. You will, too, in time. You're a good guy. You'll want to do things our way."

"I _want_ to go home to my wife, Gallagher. That's all I want."

"You're gonna have to get past that, Goren...for her sake, if not yours."

Goren clenched his left hand into a fist. "If you threaten her again..."

Gallagher raised his hand. "I am not threatening her. I told you, I will never harm her. But there are others... We fight the same corruption law enforcement does—organized crime, drug cartels, certain federal agencies. We are neither invincible nor impervious, but we have an excellent track record. We have had very few instances of corruption from within. We keep an ear to the ground. If there's ever a threat, we'll keep her safe. You have my word on that."

Gallagher reached out and patted Goren's arm. "Get your rest. And eat, for crying out loud. The sooner you recover and accept what's happened, the better for all of us. I'll be back later."

Goren watched him leave. _Accept what's happened._ Just how the hell was he supposed to do that?


	6. The Right Thing To Do

Alex wandered through the now-empty rooms of Bobby's apartment. She and Mike, with the help of her brothers, had emptied Bobby's apartment over the course of a weekend. Aside from his books, he really didn't own that much. They were able to fit his furniture in the basement of her home and she had easily incorporated the contents of his kitchen into hers. The rest of his possessions—his books, a couple of photo albums, the few boxes of his mother's possessions from Carmel Ridge, his clothes and a few odds and ends—fit into her spare bedroom. As seamlessly as he had fit his life into hers, she was able to fit what he had left behind into her home. She couldn't bring herself to get rid of anything, not yet, and no one tried to convince her that she should.

After feeding her brothers pizza and giving them each a six-pack of beer and a grateful hug, she had sent them home. She and Mike had finished packing what little was left. It would easily fit into the back seat of his car.

As she looked at the bare walls of the empty living room, Mike came out from the spare bedroom carrying a box. "Okay," he said. "This is the last of it."

Seeing the look on her face, he set the box by the door and walked to her. "You okay?" he asked, knowing the answer but feeling obliged to ask it anyway.

She shook her head. "Not even close," she answered. "It's supposed to get easier, but it doesn't."

"What's supposed to get easier?" he asked.

"Loss," she replied. "I've played this game before, but it's not easier. It's harder."

"What makes you think it's supposed to get easier?"

"That's what people keep telling me. They think that because I lost one husband, losing another shouldn't be as difficult."

"They don't know what the hell they're talking about."

"They also tell me that it will get better as time passes. They're wrong again."

"Tell me who 'they' are and I'll set 'em straight."

"It doesn't matter," she said, taking in a deep breath as she looked around the lifeless room. "Nothing will change."

Mike watched her as she walked to the window and looked down at the neat neighborhood street, three floors below. Out of habit, she searched the street for his car, which was now safely parked in her garage. Seeing Mike's car at the curb two doors down reminded her yet again that Bobby was gone.

She turned away from the window. "Let's go," she said.

As Mike picked up the box he had set down, Alex lifted the last box from the counter where he had always set his keys and his badge. Stopping at the door to take one more look around the barren apartment, she whispered, "Good-bye," and closed the door behind her.

* * *

The world outside his window was dark. Another day come and gone. Bobby was restless and bored. He had long since finished the last book Gallagher had given him and nothing on television held his interest. Slowly, he slid the picture Gallagher had handed him a few days before from the inside cover of the book. _Alex..._ It tore him apart to know that he was the cause of the pain and the grief so clearly evident on her face, however unintentional. His chest still burned, especially when he took a deep breath, and his head pounded between his temples. How could he have let this happen? How could he have let everything fall apart so completely...their life, their love, their world...

Gallagher's voice sounded in his head, intruding upon his thoughts. _We're the good guys, Goren. **You're** a good guy. You want to do what's right by people._

Yeah, well...who was going to do right by him and by Alex? He had promised her when she married him that this time it would be different. This time, her marriage would be long and happy. She wouldn't have to bury a second husband, taken too soon. So much for fucking promises.

For so many years, the job had been everything to him. Then his mother had gotten lymphoma and he had struggled, watching her get sicker and sicker, powerless to do anything to help her. The job hadn't seemed so important then, but Alex had been a pillar of strength when his own strength faltered. His grief had consumed him until Kevin Quinn was murdered, drawing him out of his own grief and into hers. He still felt a knot in his stomach, recalling her expression when she realized he was delving into Joe's murder, reopening that old wound and pouring salt on it. His life was finally settling back into a normal rhythm when Frank had thrown him a real curveball, telling him he had an adult nephew, which ultimately led to his suspension. He told Ross he would do whatever was necessary to get his badge back and he had meant it. Ross found a way back for him, which nearly got him killed by his own partner. To this day, he couldn't say which was worse, being suspended or Alex's cold shoulder and quiet rage. He worked long and hard to get back in her good graces. The job regained its priority in his life until it was shattered into needle-sharp shards by the murder of Danny Ross. When Alex fired him, he made it as easy as he could for her; after all, he had been expecting it. Then he walked away from the NYPD for good, or so he thought.

During the time between his being fired and Joe Hannah asking him—begging him—to return, he took a job with the FBI, which kept him away from New York much of the time. He saw Alex when he was in town, and she seemed to enjoy seeing him, but it wasn't the same. So when Joe offered him his old job, he refused to take it without Alex. Joe accepted his terms and Alex agreed to come back. At first, he thought maybe it was a mistake, coming back, but then they hit their stride, and it was like old times. They began to enjoy each other again and the job returned to prominence in his life, with one major exception: Alex became more important to him. He was stunned when she agreed to marry him, and he had every intention of keeping the promises he'd made to her. How did that old saying go? The road to hell is paved with good intentions. He had no doubt that hell was exactly where he was heading.

* * *

That night, Goren lay in his hospital bed, arms folded behind his head as he stared at the ceiling. His mind drifted in the past. _Do you swear...for better or worse, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do you part?_

Both of them had taken the oath, had sworn to love and cherish the other forever. _No, not forever,_ Gallagher's voice chided him. _'Till death do you part.' You're released from your vows. She thinks you're dead._

But he wasn't dead. She just thought he was. Did that count? If she chose to remarry, would she be violating the law? She was at his funeral; she watched them bury him. The ringer was that he wasn't at that funeral. He was recuperating in a hospital bed, hidden away from the world he knew, from the people who mattered to him. Was their union dissolved because he had been declared dead by the surgeon who had saved his life? Again Gallagher's words filled his head. _We work below the radar and above the law...We make our own laws._

He still wasn't sure exactly what that meant. Of course, there had been times in the past where he had made his own laws, like when he went undercover into Tate's correctional facility, knowing full well it was out of his jurisdiction. But when the system was being abused and normal channels were useless, which was the greater crime: action or inaction? He chose action and the punishment had been severe. What made Kinley Gallagher's brand of justice any better?

 _You'll see what I mean in time. You'll learn that our way is often the only way to find justice. We're not the bad guys here, Goren. We find justice for those the system has failed. We're the last resort._

What had always mattered most to Bobby was finding justice for the victims who crossed his path. Now he had a chance to find justice before the victims lost their voices and became just another homicide statistic. Was it worth the sacrifice? How the hell could he say no?

* * *

Many miles away, in the bedroom of her home in Queens, Alex lay on her side, looking through the light cast into her room from the streetlight on the block behind her house. She stared at the picture on her nightstand, willing the man who smiled beside her in the photo to step out of it and into the bed with her. She was cold and lonely; she missed him. The future lay before her, bleak and empty. Deep inside her, a hot coal of anger simmered. _You promised,_ she thought as the coal grew hotter. _You promised me years, many happy years. You lied to me! I got weeks, Bobby, not years._ Tears streamed from her eyes, soaking her pillow, and she sobbed.

"You promised!" she yelled, swinging her arm out and knocking the picture to the floor.

She buried her face in her pillow and cried herself to sleep.

* * *

When he no longer needed nursing care, Bobby was moved from the hospital compound to a residential compound in northern New Jersey where he continued his recovery. He shared an apartment with his partner, which was meant to foster a bond between them that could save their lives. The apartment was one of many in the compound. Each consisted of two bedrooms, a living area, a full bathroom and a small kitchenette. Most of the operatives chose to take their meals in the communal dining room. The arrangement reminded Bobby of living on base when he had been in the Army, stationed in Germany and Korea. In many ways, his situation was like the Army. He no longer belonged to the world at large. He had been recruited and was subject to orders given by superiors. He lived and breathed by the Company's will. He was not at liberty to come and go as he pleased, although Gallagher assured him that one day he would be able to do as he wished during his free time. First, they had to be absolutely certain he would make no attempt to reach out to those he once knew.

Initially, Bobby stayed in his room for most of the day, leaving only to eat in the dining room during off peak hours when the dining hall was mostly empty and he was left alone. He was still recovering from his injuries and he didn't feel like socializing. He harbored a great deal of anger and resentment and he missed the life they forced him to leave behind. He missed Alex and he wanted to go home to be with her, but the implied threat of harm to her lingered. He couldn't take a chance that they might harm her if made contact. His sixth sense told him that if it came down to it, the Company would carry out their threat, implied or not. Gallagher confirmed what he thought: the Company never made idle threats. Bobby was alone in the world once again.

* * *

Joe Hannah was a sympathetic man. Bobby's death had hit him hard—he had lost a good friend. But Goren and Eames had been partners for more than a decade and he knew how much harder it was for her to lose him. He gave her as much leeway as he could, fully aware that she had to return to work long before she was ready. He knew that she would resent her new partner for awhile, but eventually, she would accept her. Alex needed time, and Hannah was willing to give her what she needed as best he could.

Alex sat at her desk, flipping through an autopsy report while her new partner, Karen Fischer, studied the crime scene photos. From his office, Joe Hannah watched them. It had taken Alex a couple of weeks to harden herself to her surroundings, but he was still worried about her. On the surface, she was all business, throwing herself into the job, but he saw her grief...and he knew her secret. She and Bobby had been lovers. He knew it, and he left it alone. He'd known Bobby for a long time. He'd been the guy's partner and he knew, better than almost anyone, that he was all about the job. He may have loved Alex, but that wasn't going to get in the way of him getting the bad guys. He had been many things, but above all else, Bobby Goren had been a cop. Hannah knew that better than anyone, so he'd left the partners' personal lives alone. It had been the right thing to do.

* * *

It was flu season, and Alex was feeling under the weather. She tried to push her way through the illness, but found herself becoming ill more often. By the end of each day, it was all she could do to drag herself home and crawl into bed. Mike was worried about her, cajoling her to see a doctor.

"It's just the flu. I'll be fine in a couple of days."

Hannah was also watching her, and when she didn't seem to be improving, he gave her no choice but to see a doctor. Begrudgingly, and only because Hannah was demanding a release from her doctor to return to work, she gave in.

She saw the doctor Tuesday afternoon. By the time she left the office, her world had shattered. She met Mike for dinner in Brooklyn, at the diner that had been Bobby's favorite. He dove into his meal as he usually did, but it didn't take him long to notice she was just picking at her food. He set down his fork and folded his hands on the table in front of him, giving her his full attention. "All right," he said softly. "What did the doctor say?"

"It's not the flu," she replied.

"Well, if it's not the flu, then what...oh..." He paused, then said, "No...you're not..."

She nodded. "I am. I'm ten weeks pregnant."

He let his breath out slowly. "Ah, geez..." He paused again. "Well, what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to be pregnant," she replied with a sharp bite to her tone.

"I know that," he answered. Realizing what her tone meant, he added, "I didn't think anything different. What I meant was, are you going to keep working, that kind of doing."

"Yes, I'll keep working. I did last time. I won't have to worry about my partner handling a temporary partner this time." She shook her head slowly. "I haven't wrapped my head around this yet."

Mike let out a long heavy breath. "Well, whatever you need, just ask, okay? I don't care if you want watermelon and bacon ice cream at three in the morning. I'll get it for you."

She smiled at him as a tear rolled down her cheek. "He'd be grateful to you, Mike. You're a good friend."

His face turned red and he turned his attention back to his meal, glad that Alex was now eating her soup. Mike was what he had always been, what Bobby had always needed him to be: a good friend.


	7. Questions Arise

**A/N: Thank you so much to my readers for hanging with me. I'm sorry for the delays in posting. Life has been very hectic over the past six months and I have been recovering from knee surgery. As always, I appreciate your reviews, your patience, your time and your trust as I play with our beloved characters. Love to all of you!**

* * *

Time passed slowly as Bobby healed. He continued to spend his time alone. He worked out in the gym and ate in the dining hall when they were mostly empty. The compound had a recreation room with several pool tables, a couple of ping pong tables, a few televisions and a number of nearly full bookcases. There was also a liberal smattering of current magazines laid out on coffee tables and end tables by the chairs and couches. It was a great setup, but again, Bobby only spent time there when he was alone or nearly so. His body language and his manner clearly said "Leave me alone" and so people did. He was full of anger and resentment, and he had no desire whatsoever to make friends.

Only Gallagher was exempt from Bobby's self-imposed isolation, and he took advantage of his special status. Occasionally, Bobby would play pool with him or box with him in the gym, which helped to channel Bobby's aggression, especially since Gallagher took all the punches while Bobby was recuperating. Gallagher knew it was going to take more time for Bobby to settle in than it did for most operatives, and he was willing to give him all the time he needed.

It took less time for Bobby to settle into the job. Six weeks after the shooting, they were given their first case as a team. Although Bobby resented his new partner for not being Alex, Gallagher took his mood and his temper better than Bishop had. Gallagher dealt with the bosses, running interference to keep his partner out of trouble, much as Alex had done with Danny Ross. Gallagher also handled the paperwork, which Bobby didn't mind at all.

Gallagher was broad and muscular so while Bobby continued to recover his strength and recondition his muscles, Gallagher was the primary muscle of their team. It didn't take Gallagher long to discover Bobby's intelligence or his brilliance as an interrogator. He was also the first to admit Bobby had a better grasp of forensics than he did. While they shared investigative work, Bobby usually took the lead in the interrogation room. Gallagher was as willing as Alex had always been to follow Bobby's hunches, and as they worked together, Bobby reluctantly realized that he liked working with Gallagher. In fact, he liked Gallagher as a person, and for that, he felt incredibly guilty, as though he were betraying Alex.

Gallagher continued to impress upon Bobby the importance that he avoid contact with his past, but Bobby's mind was continually busy, trying to figure a way to let Alex know he wasn't gone without directly contacting her. The way occurred to him one night when he couldn't sleep: _the flowers._ Using a computer in the common room, he printed instructions on an index card: _On the fifth of the month, deliver eight red roses and four white ones to Alex Eames. 135 Hauser Street, Astoria, Queens, New York. No card._ He found a stack of index cards and a box of plain white envelopes in the desk under the printer and was careful to remove what he needed from the center of both. He wore a glove on his left hand so he wouldn't leave prints. Returning to his room, he carefully wiped down enough twenties to pay for the flowers and delivery and slipped them into the envelope, which he sealed with a wet glove tip and hid in his jacket pocket along with a spare latex glove in the opposite pocket. Then he hoped for an opportunity to deliver the envelope.

Every night, Bobby sat by his open window, looking out across the compound as the clean, pine-scented air of rural north Jersey blew in through the window. Every night, he looked up into a sky studded with millions of stars, stars he was never able to see through the light pollution of New York City. Every night, he hoped that Alex was safe, that she could somehow find it inside herself to seek happiness again and, finally, that someday she would forgive him for all the pain he caused her. Before moving away from the window, he would find Polaris, the North Star, which was visible in the sky all year long, and he would softly whisper to the cosmos, "I love you, Alex."

* * *

Bobby was running out of time. It was the beginning of the month and he hadn't yet had the opportunity to deliver his envelope. On the night of the third, however, he was reminded of an old saying: _Fortune favors the foolish_. He and Gallagher were chasing down a lead in Chelsea and Gallagher turned down the block where his friend Debbie's shop was located. It was one building away from the corner of the block they were walking down. Bobby slipped his hand into the pocket in which he'd placed the glove and slipped it on as he dropped back a pace or two from Gallagher's side. Gallagher didn't notice. He fell back another pace or two at the middle of the block. When Gallagher turned the corner, Bobby took his chance and slipped the envelope into the mail slot of the closed shop. Snapping off the glove, he shoved it back into his pocket and trotted around the corner, almost running into Gallagher, who had noticed Bobby's absence and turned around to look for him.

"Where'd you go?"

"I dropped something."

"We've only got two more blocks to go. C'mon. I want to get back home tonight."

* * *

Alex returned to the squad room Wednesday morning with a release from her doctor to return to work. At her request, the doctor had not given a diagnosis. Her condition was something she would tell Hannah in her own time, her own way. She also hesitated to tell her family just yet. They were bound to go all overprotective on her and she couldn't handle that at the moment. _Ten weeks..._ that meant she had gotten pregnant right before he died. Fate was a cruel master.

Shortly after she got home that evening, the doorbell rang. She went to the door, where a delivery boy stood waiting with a long thin box. "Alex Eames?" he asked when she opened the door.

"Yes," she replied.

He handed her the box and wished her a good night. She watched him return to his delivery truck, frowning at the name on the side of the truck: _Chelsea Florist_. Carrying the box into the kitchen, she opened it and gasped softly at the arrangement of roses within it: eight red roses and four white ones. She searched for a card. There was none. _Who could have...? Who knew?_

Her eyes narrowed suddenly and she grabbed her keys. Locking the house, she got in her car and drove to Brooklyn.

* * *

Mike pulled the door open and Alex delivered a closed-handed punch to the shoulder closest to her. "Ow! Hey! What?" he yelped in surprise.

"What is wrong with you?"

He saw the anger flashing in her eyes, but he could not for the life of him think of anything he could have done to make her mad. "You're gonna have to be more specific than that, honey."

"The flowers," she hissed.

"What flowers?"

"You know what flowers!"

"No, I really don't."

She suddenly realized that he honestly didn't know what she was talking about. She covered her mouth with her hand. He reached out and pulled her to his chest, hugging her because he sensed she needed to be hugged.

"What flowers, Alex?" he whispered softly.

She pulled back to look at his face as she answered, "Tonight after I got home from work, I got a delivery: a box of roses. Eight red and four white, just like there's supposed to be. If you didn't send them, who did?"

Mike knew what the roses meant. Every month since they had become lovers, Bobby had sent Alex roses: one red rose for every month they had been together. After they were married, he added one white rose for every month they had been married, always delivered on the fifth day of the month, the day of the month their private relationship began. It was his way of telling her she was cherished and the day was as important to him as it was to her. Mike was the only one who knew, but that didn't change the fact that he hadn't sent the flowers.

"What florist?"

"The same one in Chelsea that he always used, Debbie's shop."

"No card?' She shook her head. "Alex, honey, I didn't send you any flowers."

"Then who did?" she asked.

Bobby had been gone for two months and no flowers had come the month before. Now, suddenly, Alex was receiving flowers, seemingly from him. But that was impossible, wasn't it?

* * *

As time continued to pass, Bobby's depression began to lift. He goaded Gallagher into giving him a challenge in the boxing ring, so he was now getting punches thrown at him. He was a good fighter, but so was Gallagher and his left eye was often as bruised as Gallagher's right one.

The physical exertion he received from boxing and working out improved his physique and his mood but he was always at his best with a puzzle to solve. The cases he and Gallagher worked were challenging because he had to figure out their living victims as well as the people who were the threat to them. So his mind was always busy, which also helped to improve and stabilize his moods. Gallagher, he knew, was becoming complacent, thinking that Bobby was finally accepting his situation and moving on, but nothing could be further from the truth. Alex was never far from Bobby's thoughts.

In addition to being smart. Bobby was cunning. He could out-think most people and the criminal who could outsmart him was a rarity. Before he was assigned to Army CID in Germany, Bobby spent his time thinking of ways to get around the rules without getting caught. He was very good at it. Of course, he'd had lots of practice in high school, figuring out ways to sneak off for a smoke or a joint or private time with a girl. He and Lewis became adept at stealing cars, picking up girls and having everyone and everything back where they or it belonged before anyone knew anything was out of place. Now he applied his considerable cunning to his most important problem. In what other ways could he let Alex know he was still alive without putting her at risk?

* * *

Alex sat down on the edge of her bed and looked at the picture she had knocked onto the floor a few weeks ago. "Well, Bobby," she said to his smiling face. "We've done it now. How am I going to do this without you?"

She steeled herself against the tears that always seemed too close to the surface to suit her. She was tired of crying. The pain of her loss had not diminished, and she was coming to realize that it was something to which she would have to adjust. It had become part of her as much as an arm or a leg. She rested both hands over her lower abdomen and softly said, "I promise you are going to know your daddy and you're going to know why he's gone away."

She was going to have to seek closure, and part of that, she knew, involved going to Riker's to see Gus Jarden, who sat in his eight by ten cell awaiting trial on a number of charges, including killing a cop. It wasn't fair that Jarden, who had not been killed by Bobby's bullet, sat in a cell, alive, while Bobby lay in a coffin under six feet of dirt in a lonely graveyard.

She began visiting his grave within a month of losing him, hoping that, somehow, Bobby would know she hadn't forgotten him. Every Sunday, she made the trip to Holy Cross Cemetery in Brooklyn, where Bobby lay not far from his mother and his brother. She hoped that Jarden had no visitors, that he had been forgotten. She wanted his imprisonment to be as oppressive as it could be. Her only hope in visiting him was to gather some closure for herself.

* * *

Alex hadn't been to Rikers in a few years. Bobby had gone a few times without her to visit Gage, who had since been moved to the prison ward at Bellevue because of the deterioration of his physical and mental health. She knew that he'd heard about Bobby because he was calling her several times a week. She refused to answer his calls. She had nothing to say to Declan Gage.

Nothing about the prison had changed, not that she expected any difference. She handed her gun, badge, keys and phone under a window of bullet-proof glass to be locked away as she signed in on a clipboard. A guard led her into the depths of the prison to an interrogation room where she waited for Jarden to be brought to see her. Idly, she wondered if Bobby had been in this room the last time he'd been to visit Gage. The last prisoner she had visited with him was Ray Delgado, and that visit had led to a fight because of Bobby's willingness to believe, after nine years in prison, that Delgado might not have killed Joe Dutton.

Drawn from her thoughts by the banging of doors and the rattle of keys, she looked up as Jarden was brought into the room. The guard secured him with handcuffs to the table and moved to stand by the door. She didn't ask him to leave.

She studied Jarden in silence for a few minutes before she asked, "Do you know who I am?"

The prisoner shook his head. "Not a clue, lady."

"That's Detective. Detective Eames."

He shrugged. "You still mean nothing to me."

"Does the name Robert Goren mean anything to you?"

Again he shook his head. "Nope, not a...wait...wait a minute..." His brow furrowed as he gave some thought to why that name sounded familiar. "In't he that cop what chased me that night I got arrested?"

"That's right. He's the cop you killed."

Jarden clasped his hands together in front of him and leaned toward her. "You gotta listen to me, lady..."

"Detective."

"Yeah, yeah, okay. Detective. Listen...I din't kill nobody. I din't even have a gun on me. I swear! Mebbe I did some of the other things they say I did. I mean, I ain't no saint. But I ain't no killer either. Mebbe I been tried and convicted in the press already, but I din't kill that cop. Somebody else was in that alley with us. _He_ shot the cop, and he took a coupla shots at me, too. Got me in the gut. I got shot, too, but that cop never fired his gun, not at me or at nobody else. He din't have a chance."

Alex studied the pleading face in front of her, not wanting to believe him. Bobby had not fired his gun? Without knowing it, Jarden was right. Bobby would not have fired without knowing for certain that Jarden had a gun. His weapon was always his last resort.

Again, she remembered Ray Delgado. Bobby had been right to believe he was innocent. Delgado had served nine years for a murder he hadn't committed. She couldn't let the same thing happen again. Just as Bobby had not let Johnny Kang go down for the murder of Kevin Quinn, if Guy Jarden did not kill Bobby, she couldn't let him be convicted of his murder. Bobby had always been more open-minded, more willing to go the extra mile to make absolutely certain, in his mind, that they had the right perpetrator. Prisons were full of people saying they didn't commit the crimes for which they were convicted. She had argued that point, angrily, with Bobby when he suggested Delgado had not killed Joe. Calmly, he had pointed out that all of them could not be wrong. Some of them _were_ innocent. _By statistics alone, Eames..._ she smiled to herself at the memory.

Finally, she sat straighter in her chair. "Robert Goren was my partner," she said coldly.

She saw the slim ray of hope vanish from Jarden's face. "I din't kill him," he whimpered. "I swear on my mother's grave, I din't."

She rose from her seat, keeping her eyes on the pleading face. Then she turned and the guard let her out of the room. The first thing she was going to do was make sure Jarden's mother was dead.

* * *

Alex returned to 1PP with a list of things she wanted to check. A quick records search showed that Jarden's mother had passed away seven years ago and was buried in the Bronx. She read through the report of Jarden's arrest and subsequent interrogation by Daniels. She retrieved Bobby's Glock from Hannah and checked the magazine. All ten rounds were there. Bobby had not fired his gun the night he was killed. Her next move was to call the lab, asking them to run ballistics on the rounds they had received from St. Clare's and Bellevue that night. She asked them to compare the round from Bellevue, which came from Jarden, to Bobby's gun and then to the rounds that came to them from St. Clare's. She then asked them to run all the rounds through the system. The slugs hadn't been sent to them because no one questioned the shooting scenario and no one believed Jjarden's story of another shooter. The investigating detectives were certain they got their man.

Yet no gun had been found on Jarden, the presumption being that he had ditched it before he was arrested. No weapon had turned up during the searches of the alleys, dumpsters, yards and sewers between the alley where she found her partner and the street where the back-up team had apprehended Jarden. She reviewed Jarden's record. His criminal history went back many years. His juvenile record, of course, was sealed, but there were plenty of infractions since he turned eighteen to establish a pattern. Drugs, theft, assault, breaking and entering, grand theft, larceny...He was a violent offender, but there was no record of him ever using a weapon of any sort, not even a baseball bat. His preferred weapon had always been his fists. By all accounts, he had never used a gun, not even for threat or intimidation. He had never been found in possession of a gun nor was there any history of him owning a gun, not that that meant anything. She was beginning to believe that Jarden was telling her the truth: there was someone else in the alley that night, someone who had wounded Jarden and killed her partner. But who could it have been? The trail was more than two months old and it wasn't her case. No one bothered looking for anyone else since they assumed Jarden was the shooter. Bobby would have run through the evidence anyway. He would have listened to Jarden, given him the benefit of the doubt, as he had with Kang and Delgado and numerous other suspects. But how many other cops were like Bobby? She rested her head in her hands. _None_.


	8. New Friends

Running was very cathartic for Alex. Her doctor told her that she could continue her regular activities, including running, until the baby was bigger, so most days, she found time to run. As often as she ran, though, she could not outrun the emptiness that consumed her. She could not distance herself from her loss.

Early one morning, after tossing and turning for a couple of hours, Alex gave up on sleep and drove to the squad room. From there, she left on an early morning run through the deserted streets of downtown Manhattan. She stopped when she arrived at Ground Zero, which was something she always did. She could never pass the site where the Towers fell without stopping to remember the lives that were lost, and those that were saved, that horrible morning. The huge hole left in the ground once the rubble had been cleared away was now occupied by the National September 11 Memorial as well as the construction site of the September 11 Museum which was being built. She and Bobby hadn't been partners for much more than a year that September morning. She got a true glimpse into the heart of a hero that day. She withdrew her letter requesting a new partner later that week. He'd earned himself a chance with her; he'd begun to win her over.

Turning away from the construction fencing, she resumed her run, heading north. Hitting her stride, she stopped only for red lights, and then she jogged in place until the light changed. She didn't pay much attention to where she was going since she had plenty of time before her workday started. She was used to running and could easily run ten miles without undue fatigue, now that her first trimester was over. Bobby suggested that she train for the New York Marathon, but she hadn't taken him seriously. He continued to suggest it until she had, in jest, told him she would run it when he did. Two days later, he began running with her. That was just before they'd been married. He had continued to run with her almost every morning until the day he died. She made up her mind to run in the Marathon next year, after the baby was born. She would run it in his memory, a thought that always caused a lump to form in her throat. She missed her running buddy, her partner in work and in life. She missed him every single day, from the moment she awoke, alone in her big king bed, to the moment she cried herself to sleep in that same bed. So far, nothing eased her pain.

With every heel strike on the pavement, she missed him more. Without his company, she was left alone with her thoughts. She blinked away her tears as she turned east on Delancey from Chrystie Street, and she ran headlong into another early morning jogger. She stumbled back a few steps before catching her balance.

"I am so sorry," the other jogger exclaimed, extending his hands as if to help her catch her balance. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she insisted, wiping at her eyes and waving off his help.

"I'm sorry..." he repeated.

"It's fine. Really."

Recovering himself, he said, "I thought I was the only idiot who got up at oh-dark-thirty to run." His eyes widened suddenly as he realized what he'd just said. "I...no, I didn't mean...that sounded like I was calling you an idiot. I wasn't..."

He took a deep breath and composed himself. "Can we start over?" he asked, extending his hand to her. "I'm Hunter, Hunter Cadigen."

Alex accepted his hand, distracted by his fluster. "Alex Eames."

"Please, let me apologize by buying you a cup of coffee?"

"That's not necessary."

"Maybe not...but I'd like to. There's a deli just down the street here. Please?"

She hesitated before accepting his offer with a nod. Together, they jogged to the deli and went inside.

Hunter got two cups of coffee and two bagels, then joined her at the table she had chosen. "I didn't know if you like cream cheese or butter or lox with your bagel, so I got all three," he said, setting the tray in front of her. "There's cream and sugar for the coffee, too."

He watched in fascinated silence as she added packet after packet of sugar to her coffee, followed by four creams. As she stirred her cup, he noticed the rings on her left hand. He felt a pang of disappointment.

"How long have you been married?" he asked, trying to sound casual.

Her look of abject sorrow caught him off-guard. Quietly, she said, "We'd been married for two months when he died."

"Oh, I am so sorry," he said, and he meant it.

"So am I," she replied. "Thanks."

"When did...I mean, how long...oh, I am so not good at this. Usually, I have no problem with words."

She almost smiled. "He's been gone for almost three months."

"Do you mind if I asked what happened?"

"He was a cop. He was killed in the line of duty."

He looked out through the window at the streets of the wakening city, his lips drawn into a tight line. When he looked back at her, his eyes were moist. "That's something that stays with you, a loss like that."

She nodded. "It is. My first husband was killed in the line of duty, too. I thought that this time, it would be different. He promised..." She caught herself and shook her head. "Things happen."

He pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment, then looked at her with an apology in his eyes. "Well, now that I've thoroughly depressed us both..."

She almost laughed. "You didn't," she assured him. "I just...I haven't had enough time..."

"You don't have to explain. Let me change the subject. What do you do for a living?"

"I'm a cop," she said with a wry smile.

He groaned. "I promise, I'm not usually such a yutz."

"I believe you," she said with a small smile. "What do you do that makes you so good with words?"

"Believe it or not, I'm a lawyer. A corporate attorney, to be exact. I'm usually good with words because I use them all day long."

He took a bite of his bagel and watched her sip her coffee, waiting for her response. Her smile was sad, but he understood. She was a new widow. "A lawyer," she said thoughtfully.

"But not one who will undo your hard work in court," he added. "I don't have the stomach for criminal defense."

"No? Can't argue a good case?"

"It's not that. I can argue with the best of them. I was captain of my debate team at Yale. We were undefeated."

"Impressive. So why did you opt for business law?"

"Because I have a fortune in loans to repay, so working as a prosecutor was out, and I refuse to defend criminals. I work with business contracts and my conscience is clear."

"So you're not a shark..."

"No, not yet, but I'm sharp as a tack. Maybe once my loans are paid, I'll rethink the prosecutor's job. I'd be good as an ADA. I have what it takes."

"Are you sure about that?"

"I'm positive." He looked past her, and his eyes hardened. "My father was a cop. When I was ten, he was killed in the line of duty and a slip-shod prosecutor lost the case against the creep who killed him." He shifted his gaze back to her. "I have what it takes."

She saw the fire in his eyes, and she felt a kinship with him. "Yes, it stays with you," she said softly.

"The ones who killed your husbands...?"

"We got the first one, but not the second. I have no idea who killed my..." She stopped, unable to say his name.

Hunter reached out and grasped her hand. She let him hold on for a couple of minutes in silence, then she looked at her watch. It was getting late. "I really need to be going," she said.

"Do you think...maybe we could run together again some morning?"

Alex had to admit it would be nice to have a running companion again. Mike had absolutely no interest in running as a hobby. "I think I'd like that," she admitted.

"Maybe I can prove to you that I'm not really such a blithering idiot."

She studied him for a moment before borrowing a pen from the cashier and writing her number on a cup sleeve.

"Maybe," she said. "Thank you for the coffee."

He watched her leave the deli and jog away.

* * *

Bobby was glad to leave the compound when he and Gallagher were investigating a case. Their jurisdiction ran from the southern tip of New Jersey north to the Canadian border with Maine and west to the Great Lakes, but so far, their cases had been confined to the Tri-State area that included New York City, New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania.

Back at the compound after their third case, Gallagher showed Bobby the procedure for checking out a vehicle if he wanted to use one, but he cautioned him again about avoiding contact with his past. "I want your wife and your buddy safe as much as you do. Besides, I really don't have any desire to work in Mississippi or North Dakota, okay?"

Bobby nodded. "Okay, okay. I'm not stupid, Kin."

"I know you're not, but you _are_ reckless. Just behave."

Two days later, Bobby left the compound alone for the first time since the shooting. He drove to Queens and parked down the block from the home Alex had moved into six months after Jo Gage had kidnapped her. Although they had maintained separate residences, Bobby had always preferred her house to his apartment. When he needed time to himself, he went to his apartment, but he had begun to think of her house in Astoria as home. He studied the house he had not seen for more than three months, and his gut churned. The wide porch looked welcoming with its comfortable swing and the pair of Adirondack chairs he had given her for her birthday. The rosebushes that grew along the front of the porch and down the south side of the house would soon turn green and bloom again. Alex loved roses, and one weekend that she had gone out to Long Island to visit her sister, he had planted those roses for her. The blooms ranged in color from deep red and burgundy to orange and yellow and purple. Alex loved them.

He sat there for almost an hour, watching the house. He could not imagine the pain she was going through, how hard it must be for her to suffer a second devastating loss. Thoughts swirled through his head. There had to be some way to let her know he was still alive. The flowers he sent her were a start, and he would continue to send them on schedule, but they weren't enough. A silver Honda drove past him down the street, and he slid down in his seat, his heart pounding. When he realized it wasn't her car, Gallagher's voice sounded in his head, warning him to be careful, to avoid running into his past. The Company was unlike any other organization, and they were ruthless in their efforts to remain clandestine. Gallagher never went so far as to verbalize the details of the threat the Company posed to Alex and Mike, but Bobby did not doubt the threat was credible and lethal. Gallagher was right; he was reckless. He was risking her life for no damn good reason...

She would be home soon, and he could not risk the chance that she might see him. As much as he longed to stay and at least lay eyes on her, he could not take the chance. He started the car and drove away.

* * *

As he left Astoria, the deejay team on the radio began discussing sports. Their topic was how the Yankees were performing in spring training at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa. As they speculated how the team would perform during the upcoming season, he remembered taking Alex and her nephew to a game against the Texas Rangers the summer the new stadium opened. It was the year they were on hiatus from NYPD and they didn't see each other as often as they would have liked. They had a great time at the game, and it was a favorite memory for him. That thought led to another idea, and he drove to the Bronx, where he bought two tickets to a home game against the Rangers in the same seats they had back in 2009. He had no guarantee she would remember, but if she did, maybe another piece of the puzzle would fall into place next to the roses. He would mail the tickets to her from the city in a plain envelope with a typed address and no return address or fingerprints. The tickets were in an envelope, so the only prints on them would be the ticket agent's. He made another stop to pick up a dozen bagels before he drove back to the compound

As he put the bagels away in the kitchenette, Gallagher gave him a suspicious look. "You went to the city?"

Bobby shrugged. "I miss it. Don't worry. I got the bagels in the Bronx. No one who knows me saw me. Ten million people—what are the chances I'd be recognized? Besides, I'm dead. No one's looking for me." He tossed a bagel to his partner. "Here...ruin your appetite for dinner."

Gallagher finally laughed and bit into the bagel.

* * *

That night, after dinner, Gallagher coerced Bobby into going to the rec room with him to play a game of pool. Bobby resisted, but when Gallagher insisted he was not above begging, Bobby finally gave in.

The rec room was crowded, which Bobby was not used to, and all the pool tables were in use. Gallagher stepped behind the snack bar in the far corner of the room and poured two drinks. He handed one to Bobby and said, "Try to relax. I promise no one here is going to bite you."

Bobby took a drink of the scotch in his hand and growled, "I bite back."

"Just don't bite first, okay?"

Several bar stools near the cue racks were empty and they sat down, waiting for a turn at the tables. A ledge ran along the wall by the tables, giving them someplace to set their drinks. As he watched the activity around him, Bobby remembered how much he liked to watch people. Everyone around him was unwinding, and the room was filled with conversation and laughter. A sandy-haired man in his late thirties joined them when he missed sinking his ball. "Hey, Kin! Haven't seen you around lately."

"I've been busy. This is my new partner, Bobby Goren. Bobby, this troublemaker is Tug Crespin."

Bobby shook Tug's offered hand. Tug had an easy smile and a friendly manner. "It's about time they gave Kinley a new partner. It's not good for a guy to sit around and reflect on the past too long."

Before Bobby could reply, Tug's opponent came around the table and approached them. "Kinley!" she said with delight and stepped into a hug. "Long time, no see!"

"Hi, Kennedy," Kinley said with deep affection, kissing her cheek.

She spun toward Tug and poked him in the ribs with her cue stick. "Your turn, Tugger," she said.

She leaned her cue stick against the wall and took Kinley's glass from him, taking a drink. "Hey," Kinley protested. "Get your own."

His tone was playful. She smiled and handed back the glass, now half-empty. "You drank half of it," Kinley complained.

"No," she replied. "I left you half."

Bobby laughed before he could stop himself, drawing her attention to him. "Hey, stranger," she said, sticking her hand out to him. "I'm Kennedy Mills."

He accepted her hand. "Bobby Goren."

"You're the cop that got shot a couple months ago, right?"

"That's me."

"He's my new partner," Kinley said.

"I'm glad to hear that," she said somberly. "It's about time you got back into the game."

"Maybe so," Kinley agreed.

Kennedy shook off her mood and motioned at Bobby's empty glass. "What's your poison?"

"Scotch."

She took his glass and Kinley's. "Be right back."

Both men watched her go. She was about the same age as Tug, though she seemed much younger. Kinley turned on his stool after Kennedy disappeared behind the snack counter. "Kennedy is a ton of fun. She's very outgoing."

"That's kinda hard to miss."

"Kinda. There's almost twice the number of male operatives as females, and we've got a couple of lookers floating around the grounds, but you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone better liked by everyone than Kennedy. She's a glass half-full kinda person."

"So I saw."

Tug rejoined them and looked around. "Where'd she flit off to now? I swear it takes twice as long to play a game with her. She keeps disappearing."

Bobby motioned toward the snack bar as Kennedy reappeared, carrying four glasses. She passed the three men their drinks and said, "My turn?"

"It's always your turn," Tug complained with half a smile.

She grabbed her cue stick and bounded to the table to see what Tug had left for her.

Bobby turned his attention back to Gallagher. "Why the discrepancy between males and females?"

"You mean do we discriminate in our recruiting? It's nothing so sinister. More men are loners. They tend to be less cautious and more men aren't attached to someone else. It's just one of those things. Plus, every operative we recruit has decided, for whatever reason, never to have children. Fewer women want to give that up. There are lots of factors. You get the idea?"

Bobby nodded, watching Kennedy return to them. She tossed her cue to Tug, who caught it. "What'd'ya want me to do with this?" he asked.

She grabbed a handful of pretzels from a nearby bowl. "Use it to sink the eight."

"I have two more balls to sink."

"Not any more. They were in my way."

"Both of 'em?"

She shrugged and talked around a pretzel. "What can I say?"

"There are rules for a reason, Kennedy," Tug grumbled as he passed his cue stick to Kinley.

She laughed and watched him sink the eight with ease as she knew he would. "It's all yours, guys," she said to Kinley and Bobby. She smiled at Bobby and laid a hand on his arm. "It was nice to meet you." Then she trotted away. "Bye, Kin! C'mon, Tug—there's a ping pong table free."

Tug gave a weary wave and followed in Kennedy's wake. Kinley chuckled as he racked the balls. "If you ever need cheering up, Kennedy never disappoints."

"She has a lot of energy. Are you telling me _she_ was a loner?"

"In a way, yeah. Kennedy is special. House fire at Christmas when she was in high school took her entire family—parents, two siblings, her only living grandparents. I wasn't around back then, so I don't know the hows and whys, but she's one of the youngest operatives we ever recruited. She finished high school with us. She's been with us for almost twenty years now."

"She never wants kids?"

"It's a moot point. She was injured in that fire. She _can't_ have kids. Honestly, I don't think she remembers any other life any more. She's blacked out her entire childhood. Trust me, she was better off with us after that fire than she would have been in some orphanage or foster home. She's been happy here and well-loved. You break."

Bobby lined up the cue ball and got his cue stick ready. He leaned over the table, glanced up at Kennedy then took his shot.

Kinley watched his partner as they played their game. He had been wanting to introduce Bobby to other operatives, but he had to wait until Bobby was ready. In particular, he felt that Kennedy would do Bobby a lot of good. So he'd waited. When Bobby returned from his drive that afternoon, Kinley didn't have to asked where he'd been. Bobby had been sullen all afternoon and Kinley decided that it was time for Bobby to meet his fellow operatives. He had a new life to live and it was about time he started. Tug had said it best: it did no good for a guy to sit around and reflect on the past too long. It was time for Bobby to start leaving his past behind.

* * *

Hunter waited for a week before he called Alex. She sounded pleased to hear from him and they made arrangements to meet the next morning at five at 1PP to run.

She had dinner with Mike that evening. He noticed that she seemed distracted and commented on it. She hesitated, taking a bite of her lasagna which she chased with a swallow of apple juice. "I found a running buddy," she said.

"Good. I don't like you running all over the place by yourself."

She scowled at him before responding, "His name is Hunter."

" _His_ name?"

"Yes, _his_ name."

"Are you sure you should be running? Is it safe for the baby?"

"My doctor said it's fine until I enter my third trimester."

"What does _Hunter_ do?"

She didn't know exactly how to interpret his tone. He couldn't be jealous. Maybe he was just being protective...or overprotective. She chose to ignore it for the moment. "He's a corporate lawyer."

"A lawyer? Are you kidding?"

She sensed his disapproval. "No, I'm not kidding. He's a nice guy, Mike."

"You vetted him?"

"He isn't in the system, if that's what you mean."

"Did you run a full background?"

"Of course not. I'd like to get to know him like normal people do. He's meeting me at 1PP in the morning and we're going to run."

It was his turn to use his lasagna as a stalling tactic as he tried to sort through how he felt about her plans. He knew he had no right to interfere in her life, and he had no intention of being meddlesome, but he felt responsible for her. He had given his word to Bobby that he would always watch out for Alex, that he would be there for her and take care of her, at least as much as she would allow him to do so, if anything happened to Bobby. The fact that she told him about her plans told him that she wanted his opinion, or something.

"Will you keep me in the loop?"

"If you don't lose your mind."

He grunted and took a drink of his beer. "No promises."

"Speaking of promises..."

"I know, I know...but Bobby's not here any more to watch out for his family and I promised him I would if he couldn't. You're not gonna make me break my promise to my best friend, are you?"

"No, I won't make you break your promise. Just don't get all crazy on me, okay?"

"Yeah, okay. No crazy." He sopped up some sauce with his garlic bread. "And Hunter's a stupid name," he grumbled.

Alex gave him an affectionate smile and finished her dinner.


	9. Unraveling

**A/N: Apologies for my delay in updating. Family stuff and knee replacement surgery have absorbed most of my time, leaving little for writing.**

* * *

Alex sat in silence, pushing her salad through the dressing on her plate. Across the booth, Mike dragged a french fry through a puddle of ketchup and stuck it in his mouth. He dragged another fry through his ketchup and held it out to her. She looked at it, but made no move to take it. He moved it closer to her mouth.

"C'mon," he urged, wiggling the fry a little. "You're eating for two."

Reluctantly, she took the fry he offered. "Do you know what the best time of the day is for me, Mike?"

"Your early morning runs with Mr. Personality?"

"Hunter's a nice guy. Meet him before you decide you don't like him. I do enjoy my runs with him, but that's not the best time of my day."

"Dinners with me?"

She smiled, and he was glad to see it. She never laughed any more, and he never took a smile for granted. She ate a tomato and answered, "You...You and Hunter both...help me to get through my days."

He watched her press her hand against her growing belly. "Why don't you tell me, then?" he said.

"Believe it or not, it's the nights."

He imagined long, lonely nights. "How so?"

"Once I go to sleep, Bobby isn't gone any more. He comes back to me and I can believe he never died. Life is good again, _our_ life, until I wake up and he's not there."

Slowly, Mike nodded his head. "Yeah, I get that."

"You go through the same thing?"

"Yeah, I do. He was my best friend, Alex. You remember Lennie Briscoe?"

"Who could forget Lennie Briscoe?"

"When he died, Bobby was the one who pulled me out of my grief. I grew up an only child in an Irish household. My dad was sick; my mom was a drunk. After Dad died, I was my mother's only target. I had a rough childhood. Bobby was a kindred spirit: sick mom, drunk dad, the primary target of their abuse. He was the brother I never had. So, yeah, he comes back to me in my dreams. Olivet says that's normal when you lose someone you love, especially if it was sudden or violent...or both."

"And how does she suggest you move on?"

"Maybe you should ask her yourself."

"What's the answer, Mike?"

He sighed and offered her another fry. "Time, sweetheart. Those are the wounds only time can heal."

She took the fry, ate it and answered, "That's a cop-out."

"Nope. It's the truth. Maybe once they lay that baby in your arms, some of those wounds will heal. After all, half of that little guy in there is Bobby."

Alex pressed her hand over the flutter she felt deep in her abdomen. She hoped Mike was right, and the baby that grew inside her would, in some small way, give her back a piece of the man she loved and lost.

* * *

Kennedy looked across her living room at the clock on the wall. It was pretty late, but she was hungry and her kitchenette was in dire need of a trip to the store. She left the apartment she shared with another female operative and walked to the rec room.

As she expected, the room was not very busy. Two of the pool tables were in use and a couple of the guys were involved in animated conversation on one side of the room. In a far corner of the room, she saw Bobby, sitting alone, reading a book. She also saw, on the table in front of him, a glass and a bottle. Both were three-quarters empty. She wanted to understand his pain, but nothing in her experience allowed her any insight into his loss. All she knew to do was be his friend.

She crossed the room and sat lightly next to the scotch bottle, "Hey, there," she said quietly.

He looked up from his book and gave her a small smile. "Hey, yourself," he answered.

She moved to sit beside him as he set his book aside. She glanced at the title: _David Copperfield_ by Charles Dickens. "You like the classics, huh?"

He shrugged. "I like to read. This is the only Dickens novel I never had the chance to read."

"Dickens...I like _A Christmas Carol_. Which one is your favorite?"

" _A Tale of Two Cities_."

"'It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.' Poignant?"

"Sometimes."

She hesitated, then said, "They're wrong, you know."

"Who's wrong?"

"The powers that be, the ones who ordered Kin to arrange your recruitment. They made a mistake and they are wrong not to fix it. Actually, I don't think they know how to fix it. It's just...too late."

She watched the knot in his jaw flex. Silently, he gathered his book, the glass and the bottle. He got to his feet and muttered, "Good night, Kennedy."

She watched him leave, noting the slight unsteadiness in his gait. If someone didn't do something to help him soon, he was going to self-destruct, drowning his sorrows until there was nothing left of him. She wanted to help him, but she didn't know how. She hated feeling useless. Rising, she crossed the room to the snack bar. Ice cream always helped to lift her mood. It couldn't hurt now.

* * *

Kennedy hadn't been the only one watching Bobby. When he left the room, he did not leave alone. He followed the labyrinthine corridors and stepped out onto the large porch that ran along the east and south side of the building. He set his things on a wicker table and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. As he shook one out of the pack and placed it between his lips, he remembered how lost he'd been after his mother died. Good and bad, she had been the one constant in his life, and when she was gone, he floundered. He fell back hard on bad habits and shut out everyone, but two people refused to respect his boundaries. Two people ignored his moods and stood by him, despite his efforts to drive them away. One cast out a flotation device to a drowning man and the other made him grab it. Without Mike and Alex, he would have continued on his path of self-destruction until it was too late. Now, he was alone in the world again, without Mike or Alex to force him to pull his life together and survive.

He lit the cigarette and picked up his glass. He sat on the top step leading down to a vast grassy lawn which swept away from the building like an emerald skirt, ending in a dark forest a good half mile away. Like everything else around the place, it was immaculate. He looked to the southwest, where he knew Manhattan lay. Less than an hour's drive away, the people who loved him went on with their lives. He closed his eyes as his stomach knotted.

The door to the porch opened, casting yellow light across the porch for a moment until the door closed again. Heels clacked on the wood of the porch, stopping nearby. He didn't react.

"Those things will kill you," said a soft, feminine voice behind him.

The hair at the nape of his neck rose. "That's my problem, not yours," he answered gruffly.

She sat beside him and motioned at the glass in his hand. "And that stuff will rot your gut."

"Again, that's not your problem."

"You sure know how to slap away a helping hand."

"I don't need any help," he growled.

"Yes, you do, and the sooner you recognize that and let us help you, the better off you'll be."

"How the hell do you think you can help me, Gina?"

She reached out a hand and brushed her fingers across the back of his neck. Part of him responded. He hadn't been touched that way in a long time. But his reaction repulsed him. He jerked to his feet, catching his balance before he fell down the steps. "Back off," he snarled.

"Bobby, it's time for you to move on."

"Move on? It took me nearly half a century to find a woman who looked past my faults to the real me and loved me anyway. I didn't marry her on a whim and I'm not going to just let her go and 'move on!' I don't know how the hell to do that! So leave me alone!"

He threw the cigarette onto the pathway at the bottom of the stairs, grabbed his glass and bottle and stormed across the porch into the building. He just wanted to be alone. Why couldn't anyone respect that?

She retrieved the half-finished cigarette, smoked the rest of it and dropped it in a nearby butt can. She was uncertain, and that was an ocean she was not used to navigating. Did he really want her to leave him alone? Surely not. Tossing her hair in the breeze, she looked out into the dark toward the forest before retreating into the house.

* * *

Kinley looked up when Bobby came into the apartment. He watched in silence as Bobby went into the kitchenette, topped off his glass and set the bottle down hard on the counter. "Want to talk about it?"

"Fuck off," Bobby snarled in return.

"I'll take that as a 'no'," Kinley replied just before Bobby slammed his bedroom door.

Kinley took his partner's moods in stride. He understood Bobby's rage and his despair. He was able to draw Bobby from his shell, but, as he'd predicted, Bobby responded much more readily to Kennedy. He had a feeling that it was Kennedy who kept Bobby back from the precipice of his own despair. Just by being herself, Kennedy kept him from going over the edge.

The other thing that kept Bobby sane were the cases they were given. It didn't take long for the powers that be to realize how good he was at what he did. The difficult cases challenged him and he reveled in that challenge. Every time they went into the city, though, Bobby was extremely tense and hypervigilant. Every time they came back from the city, he spun out of control. Kinley felt responsible for his friend's situation and he spent his spare time looking for answers. There had to be a resolution, a way to save Bobby before his recklessness really did do him in. The answer was there; Kinley just had to find it.

A knock on the door drew Kinley from his ruminations. He pulled the door open and smiled at the curvy redhead who smiled back at him. "Hi, Gina. I thought you and Freddy were out of town on a case."

"We got back this morning."

"It's good to see you. C'mon in."

"No thanks, Kin. I just stopped by to see if Bobby's okay."

"Yeah, he's okay. He's gone to bed."

Gina looked over his shoulder toward the bedrooms. Kinley shook his head. "Leave him alone, Gina. You don't have a chance with him, and you're not going to wear him down. He's...unavailable, so strike him off your list right now."

"I see. A one man man?"

Kinley laughed. "Whatever you have to tell yourself. Good night, Gina."

"Sweet dreams, Kin," she replied as she stepped away from the apartment door. Kinley closed the door and looked down the hall. He knew that Gina wouldn't listen to him, and he knew that Bobby would never cave.

* * *

Hunter and Alex ran at an easy pace away from 1 PP, the silence between them comfortable. They headed downtown as they usually did, stopping at the 9/11 Memorial for a few minutes before continuing to the same deli where they had shared their first coffee. Hunter always stood by the same panel of names, and he always brushed away a tear as he walked away.

At the end of their second full week as running buddies, as they moved away from the Memorial, Alex asked him, "You knew someone in the Towers?"

He nodded "I did. Didn't you?"

"I knew a couple of the officers and I was friends with some of the firefighters who were in my brother's company. Bobby and I worked the Towers that day. It was awful."

Hunter looked back over his shoulder at the Memorial. "There were lots of heroes that day. Look at that wall, and among almost three thousand names, you'll find the name that means something to me: Anita Cadigen. She was my wife, four months pregnant with our first child. That's why I always stop, to remember her."

"I'm sorry, Hunter. We saved as many as we could..."

He shook his head, waving off her apology. "There was nothing you could have done. She worked in the North Tower, above the floors where the plane hit. She was trapped there, and she knew she was going to die there. She called me to tell me good-bye, to let me know she would always love me. Then the Tower collapsed and she was gone. Every day since, I make it a point to visit the place where she died, so she knows I've never forgotten her." He turned his head back to look at her. "So I do understand your loss, Alex...at least as much as your friend Mike."

"Mike's bark is worse than his bite, trust me. He and Bobby were close. They were in a life and death situation at Brooklyn Federal Prison and that drew them together. Bobby was the brother Mike never had, and Mike was the brother Bobby wished he'd had. He just needs time. C'mon, let's get our coffee."

They jogged away from the place where the Twin Towers once stood. After they were seated with their bagels and coffee, Alex said, "I'm going to have to stop running soon."

"Why?"

She hesitated before answering, "I'm pregnant and my doctor wants me to stop running once I get to my sixth month."

Hunter had noticed the burgeoning belly in her running clothes but he'd waited for her to say something. "It's Bobby's baby?"

Alex nodded. "Yes. It's all I have left of him."

"Let me know if there's anything I can do to help."

"Thank you, Hunt. You're already helping."

He gave her a small smile and finished his coffee.

When they left the deli, he touched her arm before they parted ways. "I mean it, Alex. Call me any time."

He leaned a little closer, allowing her to close the distance between them or not. She did, giving him a firm but brief kiss. "I'll see you tomorrow," she said.

He watched her jog to the corner and head north toward 1PP. He touched his lips, smiled softly and turned south at the corner.

* * *

She always came to him in his sleep. In that dream world, neither time, distance nor circumstance kept them apart. She was as real to him as she ever was. Nothing came between them...until he woke.

He got no reprieve in his waking hours, and he pined for her. His interactions with the other operatives were superficial, at best. Only Kinley and Kennedy made it past his outer shell, but even they didn't make it far.

Kennedy was young and empathetic. She knew he was suffering and she reached out to him. Sometimes, she was just there, a quiet presence that made him feel not quite so alone. She could coax him into a game of pool when no one else could. She could draw him out a little more than Kinley could. Over time, she became protective of his silence and his privacy...and she did not trust Gina Morley.

* * *

When Kinley came down with the flu, Kennedy was between cases and was paired with Bobby to work his active case. Bobby didn't mind working with Kennedy. She followed his lead readily, even though she was the more experienced operative. She recognized his instincts for their job and she was perfectly happy to let him take the lead.

Bobby was driving toward the city. Neither he nor Kennedy spoke until they were well away from the compound. Bobby broke the silence. "Do you like your life, Kennedy?"

She was surprised by the question. "I haven't really given it much thought," she answered. "I don't really remember much before the fire. The doctors said my memory might return, but it never has."

"You had a head injury?"

"Part of the house collapsed on me and the firefighter who was getting me out of that inferno. I had a head injury, burns, a fractured pelvis, a few broken bones. The collapse killed the firefighter who was with me, so I guess I was lucky."

"Luck is a relative term."

"You don't believe in luck?"

He hesitated before he answered, "No. I really don't."

"I wish..." she paused. Steeling herself, she continued, "If I could have one wish, I would wish you back to your life."

His brow furrowed. "You would waste your only wish on me? You could wish for a normal life for yourself, a chance to have a family..."

"Bobby, I don't remember any other life. I don't _want_ any other life. But you—you had a life, a family. My family is back at that compound. Yours isn't."

"If they had recruited me a dozen years ago, I would have welcomed it. But now, when all the pieces of my life finally fell into place..."

He shook his head and she agreed. It was cruel. The rest of their drive was silent.

* * *

The city never changed, and he drew sustenance from its energy. Ever vigilant, his eyes scanned the streets around them as they searched for their mark. The Company powers that be had given him this case deliberately. He was looking for a brother officer whose wife had been seeking help through proper channels, but the blue line closed ranks around their brother, and the beatings continued. When the oldest of her three sons tried to defend her, he'd been beaten half to death. Her husband lied to the hospital staff, saying the boy had been beaten by a street gang. For his mother's sake, and those of his younger brothers, the boy didn't dispute his father's story. And his mother, for her son's sake and those of his brothers, sought help outside normal channels. The Company agreed to help her.

Once Bobby and Kennedy found their mark, they would follow him while another team moved his wife and three sons to safety. Then Bobby and Kennedy would do their job. Fortunately, Bobby didn't know the officer, so chatting with the man wouldn't expose his identity. Still, the case unsettled Bobby.

Bobby turned a corner and every sense in his body reacted. He stopped in his tracks and quickly scanned the area. At the end of the block, he saw the police presence. He recognized the black Explorer seconds before his wife stepped out of the building. He froze as his eyes scanned her, stopping on her now-noticeable belly bump.

Halfway down the steps to the sidewalk, Alex stopped and looked down the street. Seeing nothing out of place, she continued down the steps.

At the corner, Bobby had dashed out of sight just in time, with Kennedy right behind him. Stepping to the edge of the last building on the block, he peered around the corner as Alex walked to the driver's side of the SUV. He allowed himself a small smile. Then she turned and he saw her waist a second time. There was no doubt. She was pregnant.

* * *

Kennedy knew that something was wrong, but she also knew better than to ask. Bobby's mood was black. He was in some kind of rush to get back to the compound. She wasn't certain he hit the brakes once all the way back to New Jersey. When he put the car in its parking spot and slammed the transmission into park, he jumped out of the car without turning off the ignition. Kennedy turned the engine off, left the keys where they were and scurried after him

Kinley looked up from the stove when the door to the apartment he shared with Bobby slammed open. Without a word, Bobby hit his partner in the jaw, knocking him to the ground. On the floor, Kinley scurried away from the stove as Bobby advanced on him. "You knew!" Bobby roared. "You son of a bitch! When were you going to tell me?"

Kennedy slipped past the two men and turned off the stove. Then she stood to the side, waiting and watching.

Bobby grabbed Kinley's shirt and drew back a closed fist. "How long?" he growled.

"We just found out, I swear!"

"And when were you going to tell me?"

"Soon. As soon as I figured out how."

Goren drew his fist back a little further, and Gallagher held out his hands. "I swear, Bobby. I was going to tell you soon. I have _never_ lied to you."

"Is..." Bobby was panting hard, trying to catch his breath. "The baby? Is it mine?"

Gallagher nodded. "As far as we know, yes."

Bobby released Kinley's shirt and stepped back. "No..."

"I'm sorry, Bobby. I really and truly am sorry," Kinley said, his voice pleading.

Bobby shook his head and stumbled backwards. "How...How is she supposed to..."

He shook his head again and left the room. Kinley made no move to get up from the floor. He looked at Kennedy. "Go after him! Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid!"

She was gone in a flash.


End file.
